


EPISODE VIII: The Lost Hope

by oreath



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Because the First Order deserves to be evil and the Resistance deserves to actually have some depth, Canon Rewrite, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Sensitivity, Force Training, Gen, Gray Jedi, Huddling For Warmth, Jedi, Jedi!Rey, M/M, Multi, Nightsisters (Star Wars), Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Slow Burn, Storm Trooper Uprising, We're bringing back EVERYONE, jedi!Finn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:01:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22216702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oreath/pseuds/oreath
Summary: This fic is an in-depth reworking of the Sequel Trilogy. The Force Awakens remains almost entirely the same. In it, we want to really explore the relationships between characters, both platonic and not, and flesh out the sequel universe just a little more. There are plenty of adventures abound for Finn, Rey and Poe, and there is so much more to the Resistance and the First Order than we got to see in the Sequel movies.Follow the triumvirate as they explore their past, present and future.Our tumblrs are @doc-aphra (Oriana) and @poefinn/horrorgay (Heath). Our lovely betas are @dicktouching and @trans-mando. Parentage will remain a secret. It is our goal to update every Sunday, or at the very least bi-weekly. Anyways, enjoy our exploration of what could have been!Comments are much appreciated, and please share your theories about where we're going with it. ❤
Relationships: Armitage Hux & Phasma & Kylo Ren, Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Lando Calrissian & Luke Skywalker, Lando Calrissian/Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa/Han Solo, Luke Skywalker & Han Solo, Luke Skywalker/Han Solo (mentioned), Poe Dameron & Finn, Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey, Poe Dameron & Leia Organa, Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey & Paige Tico, Rey & Rose Tico, Rey/Paige Tico
Comments: 53
Kudos: 101





	1. Battle of Starkiller

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last scene of The Force Awakens.  
> The battle of Starkiller goes a little differently for Finn, Rey, and Kylo. 
> 
> A little teaser for what's to come!

The bone chilling wind had died down somewhat since the last time they were outside, but the arctic cold still bite against any exposed skin, and snowflakes had started to flurry from the sky, sticking to their hair and melting while they were still able to hold onto body heat. Finn looked to Rey, shoulders heaving up and down, all the anger he’d kept pent up rising like a geothermal vent about to blow, and she could see the blue glint of the Skywalker saber in his eyes.

Finn, though he'd memorized so many things while in the Stormtrooper Corps, never got a chance to memorize the surface topography of Starkiller, and as a consequence, Kylo had managed to back them into a butte neither of them had seen coming. The rock walls shot straight up into the sky, but the forest had shielded the permafrosted butte from view until it was too late. Rey could scale the surface, she had enough practice climbing the fallen star destroyers to do it, but Finn… It was far too late now, to see if Finn had any climbing experience, Kylo's plumed white breath visible from only a few feet away. She would not abandon her friend.

The thought of escape vanished in almost an instant anyways, as Kylo’s face appeared behind the fog of his breath, and almost like she was shifting into an entirely different gear, she wanted nothing more than to tear Kylo Ren apart. Finn could feel a new animosity at his side, and spared a glance at Rey to see that she too was fuming. His grip tightened on the blaster.

They’d do this together, or certainly die trying.

Kylo Ren stood before them, laboriously breathing, damn near gulping in and seething out cold bursts of air. His face bore the wound Rey had given him, and his shoulder wound, twinned with Finn’s, gave evidence to two too many failures in the fight already. Kylo Ren was furious. “That saber. It belongs to me,” he panted, an intense glare narrowing even further at the duo. “To my grandfather.”

“Like hell it does,” Finn shouted, his blaster and its energy bayonet raised in a defensive position. “We’re taking it back to the Skywalkers. And we’re gonna find Luke. The whole First Order dies. And you with it.”

His attention previously directed at Rey, the knight pivoted to face Finn. The rage of the turbulent red blade gleamed in the dark apprentice’s eyes. Snowflakes fell onto the blade periodically, the sizzle ticking away the seconds before anyone made a move. Finn’s right foot swept over the snow as he planted his stance firmly, the crackling of his bayonet mirroring the noise of Kylo Ren’s blade.

Finn wanted to kill him in that moment with only a few but precise brutal blows, but he knew Rey had acid to spit at Kylo. The almost overpowering and fresh memory of Han Solo standing on the bridge, going limp and disappearing into nothing is echoing in all their heads. She responded to the patricidal brute’s demand herself, “You’ve taken enough from the Skywalkers. From the galaxy. It ends here, Ren. I won’t let you take anything else.”

Kylo Ren’s lips curled open, animalistic in nature, as if to speak, but he instead lunged forward at Finn, an arm outstretched to hold Rey back with the Force. Like in the forest on Takodana, she tried to move even a centimeter, but now she was tied down to nothing but air.

Finn narrowly managed to sidestep a heavy overhead strike from Kylo’s lightsaber. He wasn’t about to miss the opportunity to catch the blow, as he brought up the bayonet, forcing his former superior into a contest of strength, one Finn was sure he could win against his opponent. Pressing the block, he managed to drive the competing blades higher, and stuck the still lit bayonet between two of Kylo Ren’s ribs. Panting through the cold and adrenaline, he taunted, “All those fancy lessons from Snoke, and you’re still weak enough to get beaten by one of your own common troops. How does it feel, Ren?”

Now the darksider had become incensed, howling from pain and wrath, as he attempted another blow on the traitor before him. Finn barely managed to block it, but he could feel in the ensuing clash that Ren was greatly weakened by the wound he had just inflicted.

Rey took the opportunity, Kylo distracted from his vise-grip of the Force around her. Teeth bared, she made a diagonal overheard slash at Kylo Ren with both her hands on the hilt. She held nothing back and a guttural scream ripped from her as the blade came down over his back.

“You can’t win this,” Kylo Ren said as he spun in time to parry the attack, but the over embellished move left an opening for Finn, who stabbed his bayonet blade deep into his back.

Rey forces Ren’s blade into the snow with brute force, adrenaline, and fury, the periphery of her vision tinged with red. Growling, she slid her own blade up the crimson one, over the crossguard, and clean through Kylo Ren’s forearm, severing his limb and deactivating the crackling blade as the hilt falls uselessly into the snow.

The two fall to their knees, Ren clutching his cauterized arm, and Rey on the verge of tears, heaving. Ren collapsed backwards into a pile of black robe and bloody flesh, shrieking loudly as darkness engulfed his vision. With his last act of consciousness, he flung his blade through the air with the force, and it twisted through the air. Finn couldn’t dodge the unpredictable movement in time, and the saber grazed into Finn’s back, one spin of the blade bringing it parallel to his spine. It careened towards Rey as well, and she barely tore her eyes off Finn in time to see it coming towards her, Kylo’s darkened expression behind the saber blurred by tears and snow. The blade cuts into her shoulder blade and arm, and it hurts. She collapsed further, onto all fours, thinking faintly about how to parry the next blow when the saber deactivates a second time, dropping into the snow.

Rey could have sworn she heard a dying whisper, but it was almost too faint over the sound of the blood pumping in her head.

“Thank you…”

Finn couldn't move but he could feel the wound, already cauterized, pulsing on his back. He had no plans to die on the same planet that had already stolen everything from him, but there was no way off the sorry heap of rock and ice. Judging from the now eerie silence of the snow-covered woods, Kylo was dead. A muffled sob broke through the quiet. “Rey…”

“Finn!” Stumbling over to him, she was at his side in an instant, crashing down to the ground next to him. The tears were freezing onto her cheeks. “Finn, are you okay?”

Finn opened his eyes slightly and grimaced- breathing was a painful labor. “He was wrong, Rey. The Resistance wins. We did our job. This isn’t how I wanted it to end, but I’m okay. I’m glad we get to take that sorry sack of bantha dung with us. I’m just sorry for you, Rey.”

Rey, by then, was openly sobbing raw cries of pain. She inhaled sharply to pull herself together. “No, no, I. I’m okay with this. I’m okay with dying with my friend, Finn.” She moved her hand to his and locked their fingers together, pressing her forehead to his chest “We won, you’re right.”

Then came a loud click as a wall of light engulfed them. The sound of a roaring engine. A Wookiee roar. Relief washed over Rey. “Finn, we’re saved.” Her whisper is reverent, nearly inaudible over the sound of the ship.

His head lolled to one side, his smile weak.

The Falcon hovered near them, kicking up drifts of snow and banishing them farther into the trees. Chewbacca jumped off the ramp and sprinted to the them, scooping Finn into his arms. Rey scrambled behind them, climbing into the ship. Numbly, she and Chewie prepare for immediate take off, away from the imploding world. Miles into the atmosphere, Poe was giving everything he had into making sure the Order would have no more super weapons. The ramp was closing, leaving all their terror behind. She didn’t spare a glance back to the murderer in the snow.


	2. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Battle of Starkiller, our trio needs a moment to cope and heal.

Inside the Falcon, machinery hummed. The soft whirring and clicking of the hyperdrive engine comforted the two as Chewie rifled through the medical cabinets for anything to treat their wounds before they made it to D’Qar. Rey would help him, but her arm felt like it was barely attached to her body. She shuddered, the hand that clutched Finn’s jerking to the side. He cracked one eye open, looking up at her from where he lay on his stomach.

“You okay?” he asked, and Rey’s heart broke nearly in two. Earlier, when Finn was unconscious, Chewie had confided in her that he wasn’t sure if Finn would be able to walk again, or at the very least keep most of his mobility – the cut from the saber wasn’t too deep, but it was so close to his spine that there might very well be complications during the healing process.

“Finn, I’m so sorry.” She shut her eyes as a burst of pain blossomed and spread through her collarbone and up her neck, clenching her teeth so tight that her jaw popped.

“What do you have to be sorry for? We killed him. He’s gone.” It saddened Finn to see her like this. He had always been in this fight, in one way or another, ever since he was a child. Hundreds of training simulations with Slip, Nines and Zeros, fine-tuning them to become the Order’s slaughter machine, hadn’t worked as well as Phasma had hoped, but Finn could not deny that it had brought him a sense of numbness. If you got hurt, you got hurt. If you hurt someone else, that was war. He hated it, and most of the time it was wrong, but what else was he supposed to do? Kylo Ren had done nothing but hurt people. He’d deserved to die.

But all the violence was new and terrible to Rey. He was sure she had seen skirmishes on Jakku, but the war, outside of some stray Stormtrooper troops looking for spies, had skipped over her home planet after the Galactic Civil War. The Empire died on Jakku, and the First Order was content to let it be. Rey hadn’t seen anything like this, and he could see that somewhere in her core, she was terrified.

Rey squeezed his hand. There was so much to be upset about, and she knew he was only trying to comfort her, but it didn’t stop the guilt from washing over her, wave after wave. She was sorry that Han would be alive if he hadn’t joined the attempt to rescue her, sorry that Resistance members died in the dog fight in the atmosphere, sorry that Finn had bandages across his whole back and his face was twisted from the pain. “Han…”

Chewie cried out at the mention of Han, hollow and sorrowful. Finn didn’t speak Shryiiwook, but he understood pain, regardless if it were in basic or not. Bandages in hand, Chewbacca brought them over to Rey. There was also a foam spray in a canister similar to the ones the First Order used in training to help seal blaster wounds until they could be tended to in the med bay. Chewie knelt in front of Rey and wrapped her arm and shoulder with ease. Finn wondered how often the Wookiee had done this for Han.

There were tears in Rey’s eyes again as she said, “Chewie, I’m sorry we got you into this mess. I’m sorry about Han.”

Chewie replied emphatically, head tilted to one side as he watched Finn and Rey. Neither of them were fully aware, but the Wookiee had been in the fight so much longer than either of them, even longer than Han. He brought a furry hand ( _paw_? Finn mentally shrugged) to rest on her head and softly hummed something.

“Yeah… he would have.” Rey smiled, though it was still more of a grimace.

Finn let his hand slip from Rey’s, thumping against the rather uncomfortable table they’d used as a makeshift gurney. He didn’t have much room to complain about it, though, between the care he’d received and the exchange he thought he witnessed as he drifted in and out of consciousness earlier, when Rey had gently but urgently explained that no, the dejarik board wasn’t Finn-sized. At that moment, thankfully, his back didn’t hurt as much as his injury would have led him to believe, thanks in equal measure to the fact he had received immediate attention and due to the adrenaline still coursing in him. With that in mind, he knew that in a short period of time he’d be screaming if he were still awake and even with the hyperlanes, he guessed that they still had several hours until they arrived at the Resistance base.

As if Chewie could hear his thoughts, the Wookiee glanced at Rey and nodded his head towards Finn, almost purring something. Finn suddenly wondered if there were any holovids to teach him Shryiiwook.

Rey agreed with him. “We should get you something to help you sleep until we land on D’Qar. If you move too much you may tear up your back even more.” Chewbacca growled something, probably affirming the point. Rey pressed a wet cloth to Finn’s temple, dabbing gently. It was a small gesture of caring, which the former stormtrooper needed, but still one of the most intimate he had ever received.

“Yeah… okay, yeah.” He paused for a moment. “Promise you’ll be there when I wake up?”

Rey smiled down at him. “Of course, Finn.”

▹▴◃

The Falcon dropped out of hyperspace and into D’Qar’s atmosphere. Rey had to hand it to the bucket of bolts – it got them there quicker than she’d ever imagined. If she were to go off of appearances alone, the old smuggler’s ship looked like it would drop right out of the sky. Chewie began the descent, a chortling bellow coming from the cockpit, and Rey understood that at least part of the _Falcon’s_ performance was due to it being Chewie flying.

“You’re really good at this!” she yelled back, pressing a trembling palm to Finn’s forehead. It was warm to the touch; she felt a twinge of concern that he was feverish and that it didn’t bode well for his wellbeing. _Can a lightsaber wound get infected_?

Unlike Han’s landings, Chewie’s touchdown was uneventful, like the Falcon was featherlight. She stood when he entered the rec room where they waited, stepping aside when the Wookiee picked Finn up, her good arm wrapped around her chest, the injured one limp at her side. Finn stirred, eyes flickering under his lids, but the medication held fast. Chewbacca cooed, jerking his head to one side.

“I’ll meet you out there. Please hurry.”

Exhaustion sunk through her muscles, over exerted and frozen from exposure, and she walked stiffly down the ramp, dragging her feet. A warm breeze drafted in from outside, brushing the hair from her face. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the daylight, and she blinked away the watery reaction.

Resistance members sprawled the runway, most of them still in fighter gear, pilots donned in orange jumpsuits, helmets still on. The wounded were ferried from their ships with caring hands, away from the fervor of the crowd. X-Wings and A-Wings and a few new-era Y-Wings parked between an ARC-fighter and its cousin Z-95 were parked along the landing strip, and Rey had to try and force herself to not wonder if this was all that was left.

Across the landing Leia was talking to a man. His posture was frenzied, thick black waves of hair sticking up in strange places. She could see that the General was trying to comfort him, but it didn't appear to be doing much good. Leia said something, and turned partially to see Rey, standing feebly at the end of the strip. The man jerked his head towards her and then yelled what looked to Rey like “Finn!”

Running up to Rey, he placed a hand on her shoulder. To her surprise, this stranger looked genuinely pleased to see her. It took a moment, but then she realized that this must be Poe. Finn’s Poe. He’s definitely handsome, she’ll give him that: heavy lidded eyes, long lashes, chiseled face, and a beaming smile to boot. “You made it!” he exclaimed, out of breath from excitement, and then glanced behind her to the landing ramp, which was empty. His face fell. “Where’s Finn?”

 _Oh_. Something about the way Finn had said Poe’s name on Starkiller fell into place in her mind. “Chewie has him. Poe...His back. He needs medical attention, now.”

On cue, Chewie jogged down the ramp. Finn hung limp in his arms. Chewie roared to Poe, who’s comforting hand dropped from Rey’s shoulder as the pilot rushed to Finn’s side.

“What?” Poe asks. “What happened to him-”

“Kylo,” Rey said, his name harsh on her tongue. “He needs to be in a Bacta tank.”

Poe nodded frantically, pulling on Chewie’s elbow. “Follow me.”

Weariness washed over her whole being once more, and she blinked away tears, watching Finn and Poe disappear into the crowd. Finn couldn’t be in better hands, but it was hard to let him out of her sight after everything. Every fiber of her being was still screaming _protect, protect, protect_. So far, she’d done a horrible job of it.

She almost didn’t notice Leia approach and stop, arms open in front of her. Rey collapsed into her, chin colliding with Leia’s shoulder. Cheeks wet from her own tears, Leia rubbed one hand on Rey’s good shoulder. Neither of them spoke. There was no need to.

The Resistance had won the battle, but what they lost in it they’d never get back. Just as with the rest of this war. And Rey knew it would it never stop taking until it was ended.

▹▴◃

Leia was making herself a cup of tea in her tiny office. Space was tight in the D’Qar Base. Rooms felt like they were almost stacked on top of each other, so compact and condensed in rows down a hallway. Bed chambers were next to offices which were next to store rooms. The base had been an old bunker from the Clone Wars that had since been expanded in sequential wars. She wasn’t going to demand a bigger room just because she was the general. _Hell_ , she had thought when the base was being set up, _things were more cramped in the Rebellion_. It was true. Back then, brave and good people had been easy to find. There just weren’t enough soldiers left in this war. With Starkiller destroyed, she would have hoped for more support, like after the Death Star was destroyed – but this time, with the New Republic wiped out….

A hesitant knock on her door. Leia looked up from her cup and pulled herself out of her thoughts. “Come in,” she said, almost automatically.

The door raised open, and Rey stood in the threshold, one arm still wrapped around her torso to hold the shoulder that had been injured. Her wound has been easier to mend than Finn's. His was too close to the spine to count on scar tissue alone. If it didn’t heal right, his mobility would decrease significantly. Rey had been out of the Bacta within several hours, though judging from where the skin on her arm was visible, she had not made it out without a sprawling scar. “General Organa, do you have – are you busy?”

“I’m always busy, Rey.” She smiled sadly, “But yes, I have time.” Leia studied the younger woman as she went to sit, and saw in her tension and pain. The past two days since Starkiller hadn't been any good for her. She should have reached out to her sooner, but there had been plenty to do since they’d arrived back and she simply had not been able to find the time to speak with the young woman. Perhaps she’d make up for that now. “What can I help you with?”

Rey, settling into her seat opposite Leia, looked conflicted. “I, uh.” She bit her lip and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry about your son. I could have saved him, taken him with us on the Falcon. But I didn’t – I left him behind and his death, it’s my fault, and I can’t–” She was crying now, unable to hold back. “I just don’t know how to feel about this. I feel like I took everything from you.”

“Rey,” Leia started with a breaking voice. She cleared her throat. “I’ve been where you are now, Rey.” Her eyes looked past the girl, into a world long gone. “I used to think about every single stormtrooper. Every TIE pilot. Stars, the Death Star – even the damn Death Star, which deserved more than anything to be obliterated along with anyone who helped run it – it got to me, too, Rey.” She sucked in a hiss of air. “But.” She reached out and held the former scavenger’s hands in her own. “But the atrocities of the Empire, of the First Order, and Vader’s hand on my shoulder and Tarkin’s sneer, while my world was obliterated – that overrode all of it.”

Rey nodded slowly. “But – your son, there could have been good in him, still. Shouldn’t I have given him anoth–”

“Rey, my son–”

“I know, Leia. I know that he killed his father, that he’s been gone for a long time.”

“No, I mean. Well, yes, actually, but Rey, I was going to say that Kylo Ren is still alive. I feel him, still. I sense his anger even know. He is only rage and hate now. I’m surprised you couldn’t feel it.”

“I – I don’t know how to do that.”

Leia nodded. “I think I know why. Luke would say something like, ‘Your emotions can be a very useful tool at times, but a Jedi must never let themselves be controlled by them. Dulled by them.’ You have to let go, Rey. We aren’t the bad guys in this war – they are, and they started this, and they would destroy and enslave the galaxy just because they could.”

Leia wished she could do more for the girl, but this had never really been her area – telling someone else to let go of their emotions, coming from her own mouth, felt so hollow. But she knew it was true. Rey had a light in her, and that doubt could not be allowed to corrupt it. “If you have the chance to kill someone that would do nothing but bring harm to you and those you protect, you cannot hesitate, Rey.” She thought then about Han, about how she practically promised there was still goodness in their son. And now he was dead, and their son pushed even further into the darkness.

“I’ll try, General. I’m sorry for taking up your time. Thank you.” She excused herself as Leia tried in vain to tell Rey that she was here for her people, and that she would always try and make time for them.

Once Rey was gone, she looked down at her cold tea, and sighed. Things had seemed so much easier back in the Rebellion. No downtime, mission after mission, and she never had a chance to let her tea go cold. One hot gulp and she was off on the _Falcon_ again.

▹▴◃

Strategically, the cometary cloud of the Ilum System was both a very strong and incredibly foolish location to hide the remainder of the First Order fleet from the Resistance. Somehow, the Resistance had managed to plant spies throughout their ranks. This much General Hux knew, as he had executed several within the past 24 hours. How many more of them wiggled around their ranks, he didn't know, but he was sure that some semblance of their plan to destroy Ilum had been leaked to the Resistance. He doubted that they’d actually prioritize stopping them. Anyone who'd had any important business and who'd born before the Battle of Yavin knew that the planet Ilum, pitiful and frozen as it was, had a kyber core. And kyber was valuable to most anyone...but the Resistance made it obnoxiously clear that they valued life over anything else. He doubted they'd stand in the way if the Order was busy distracting them, taking villages and planets in other regions.

The cloud sat far from the planet itself, and the _Finalizer_ lurked at the very edges of it. His engineers had been hard at work attempting to produce a cloaking device that could evade known detection methods, but they still did not have anything to show for it. Basic cloaking devices, combined with the scanner-distorting nature of the cloud, would have to suffice until they were back to their full power.

Unfortunately, a cometary cloud meant comets, and their battleships could not afford to have shields raised at all times. Many of the ships that surrounded the Finalizer were absorbing the blows. Hux did not approve of the plan at all. In fact, he hated it – the Order did not have ships to spare – but the Strategic Counsel had overruled him.

At the moment, he had a more pressing matter at hand. He had hoped that Kylo Ren would have been lost in the destruction too, but Snoke had made it urgently clear that he was to risk his own life retrieving him from the snowy forest. Ren sat before him, hunched over, with what used to be his arm suspended over an operating table. A medical droid was hard at work, thin metal arms whirring around Ren as they replaced his severed limb with a durasteel one.

“You’re sure this is the best we can do?” Ren winced and Hux smiled down on him, satisfied that the blumbering imbecile was, in some way, finally seeing consequences for his actions.

“It is your incompetence,” Hux spat icily, “That lost you the hand in the first place. Don’t you dare doubt the First Order’s abilities.” The General paused for a moment, the brag almost hesitant. “When it is done, it will be like you never lost it.”

The warrior ignored his condescending remark, wiggling one of the framework robotic fingers, hawklike fascination keeping his attention elsewhere. In due time, the runt would no longer be a thorn in his side. Whether it was by his hand or another’s, he truly did not care. “Good. We go after the girl and the traitor next. With them out of the way, General Organa may falter and provide a weak point in the Resistance.”

“Do we know their whereabouts?” Hux barked.

“Not yet. But I’m sure one of your men will find that out, and soon.” The emphasis on his surety was worrisome, as a frustrated Kylo Ren was nearly useless to the Order. Hux ignored the short leash around his neck, hostage to the infant-tantrums of Ren.

“For once, I agree with you… and so does the Supreme Leader Snoke. They’ll reach out to Skywalker soon, and with our own spies in their ranks, we may find out their destination.” Hux turned on his heel to leave, but paused in the doorway, a smirk resting on his face out of view of Ren. “So...attack dog, attack.”

▹▴◃

The briefing room was of the largest rooms in the base, located in what used to be a dining hall during the Clone Wars. Now, instead of rows of dining tables and the clamor of Republic clones, there were displays and monitors lined up in a maze. Rey stepped around them, and almost bumped into a young girl in a headset who was talking a mile a minute. The girl barely noticed, carrying on towards a group of people also donned with headsets. She had her dark blonde hair up in two buns on either side of her head, a determined look set on her face. She seemed too young, Rey thought, to be working so hard to defeat the First Order. Rey herself was young – that much wasn’t lost on her – but it made it easy to imagine Leia, youthful and hot-tempered, racing around a Rebellion intelligence center, doing her part to bring peace to the galaxy when she should have been off on adventures with her friends.

Finally Rey heard General Organa’s voice, cutting through the cacophony with crystal clarity. Her tone wasn’t angry, but there was an irritated edge to it. Following the sound, she arrived before the two of them, Organa’s arms crossed, one eyebrow raised almost past her hairline, expression amused, and Poe, one hand carding tightly through his hair, his other tapping on one of the display counters rapidly. Leia was wearing a royal blue robe over her dark grey dress, and there was gold brocade running down either arm of it. It seemed uncharacteristically lavish, compared to what she’d seen her wear before, and especially compared to everyone around her. Poe’s comment distracted her from the thought immediately.

“We should be on the front lines. They’re weakened, we can strike now.” He huffed.

“Ah.” Leia could not hide her small smile. “But we don’t know where they are, do we?”

“Then we should be finding them!” Poe’s voice went up an octave, and even though he could very well be considered yelling, judging from everyone’s reaction around them, the quarrel was nothing to be worried about. Neither of them noticed that Rey had joined the crowd.

“Poe,” Leia said firmly, “we have search parties out now. It’s a large galaxy, the _Finalizer_ could be anywhere. You’re going to Ilum whether you like it or not.”

Poe muttered something under his breath and looked up, seeing Rey. She was a welcomed reprieve from Organa’s sometimes frustrating, all-knowing leadership. “How’s the shoulder?”

All eyes fell on Rey, and she shifted onto her heels, nervous and eager to deflect the attention back off herself. “It’s fine. Could be worse. I was told to meet here for a debriefing?”

Leia nodded curtly, and Poe visibly calmed down. There was an almost mother-and-son quality to their interactions. “Yes, thank you for joining us. I believe I’ve been caught up to speed about almost everything, but if you wouldn’t mind recounting what happened on Starkiller?”

“There isn’t much to tell. Finn and I...we fought him, he hurt us, but we also got our chance too. He lost most of an arm, and I thought he was dead.”

“He should be–” Poe paused for a moment. “He’s definitely done his damage. I don’t know how he got off the planet before it exploded.”

“It seems no one does, but the fact of the matter is that he did, and the Force tells me he’s not done.” The general turned to Rey, frowning. “One of our spies has caught word that they’re interested in the planet Ilum. It was overlooked by most of us at the end of Yavin, but the planet does have a kyber core. They may want to use that to their advantage. I’m sending Poe there to see what their intentions are. In the meanwhile, launching attacks at the recruitment outings the Order has started up in the past day is our best option to fight back against their rebound. We’ve had several reports of slaughters on Outer Rim planets. And I’m sending you, Rey, to retrieve my brother.”

Rey’s eyes narrowed, confused. “I thought we didn’t know where he was. We never found the complete map.”

There was a whirring and chirping, a tell-tale astromech chatter, and then an old model, Republic era, wheeled through the crowd, which parted with a kind of reverence Rey had never seen for a droid. He was small, mostly white and metallic blue. From Leia’s side, Threepio cried out, “Artoo!”

Leia knelt, patting the top of the astromech’s dome. “Never rule out a droid’s love of theatrics. Artoo’s a little late to the party, but he’s finally woken up and it appears he had something to show us this whole time.”

The droid made a cheery sound and then a dazzlingly intricate holoprojection appeared from him, expanding to fill the room. Before them all was a map of the galaxy: dozens of planets and systems, with an orange path marked clearly, jumping from planet to planet in what looked like a hyperdrive route.

“He’s been on Ahch-To, in the unknown regions.” Leia came to rest a hand on Rey’s shoulder. “Luke won’t want to talk to me after everything that happened, but he might talk to you, Rey. Please, try to bring him back to us.”

A stone formed in the younger woman’s throat, and she swallowed. For a brief moment she wanted to protest. The responsibility of Luke Skywalker’s return felt like a huge weight had been placed on her shoulders, but there was a warmth hidden in the sorrow in Leia’s eyes. The general truly believed that she had a chance to break through to Luke. Rey had to take that chance. “Alright.”

“Thank you.” Grasping Rey’s hand in her own, Leia squeezed it and then pulled it towards her heart, letting it rest there, as her voice dropped to a whisper. “Thank you.”

▹▴◃

The rooms in the recovery ward of the medbay were surprisingly comfortable compared to Poe’s compact quarters on the other side of the base, though it made sense that they had reserved spacious rooms for the situations that called for comfort and tranquility. Soft yellow-green light filtered in from the airy, lush world of D’Qar. At the base’s back, nestled among the rolling grassy hills, was a forest. Sometimes Poe would walk it to clear his head; it reminded him of home. He sat in a chair at Finn’s side.

Finn stirred, popping an eye open. Poe would bet that Finn had gotten more sleep in the past couple of days than Poe had gotten in weeks, but it had been good for him. The color was returning to Finn’s cheeks. Slowly, he sat up in bed, propping a pillow behind his back. “Poe?”

“Hey, buddy. How’re you feeling?”

Ren’s broken saber crackled. Finn’s heart skipped a beat. It took a moment to realize that there was no Kylo here. This was just Poe, hovering over him, hand on his cheek, grounding him.

Finn took a deep breath, pushing past the dull throb in his lower back. “Okay. Sore, but I’m okay. What happened?”

“Well, what _didn’t_ happen?” Poe chuckled, unhelpfully. He went silent for a moment, and then remembered Finn was truly waiting to know. “Kylo almost died on that ice heap, but somehow he escaped. My money’s on that sniveling Hux. We destroyed Starkiller. I lost some good people out there, but it’s over with. Sorry about your back, but at least our Bacta tanks are so good they could cure Chewie of his Wookie attitude.”

Finn laughed.

Someone knocked at the door, and they looked up to see Rey, hand resting on the edge of the doorway. She was wearing something new – more Resistance than her scavenging gear, dressed in a light grey airy shirt, with flowing fabric hanging down from her belt, which was outfitted with several new pouches and a hilt for the saber. Her pants were black, still cut short under her knee, where there was a sliver of her Jakku tan still evident. Someone had given her a new pair of black boots, which wrapped tightly around her legs.

Rey swore there was the slightest hint of tension that radiated out into the room. Poe cleared his throat, and patted Finn’s shoulder gently, his hand lingering for a moment at the back of Finn’s neck. “I’ll let you two have a moment. See you later, Finn.”

“Thanks, Poe,” Rey and Finn chorused in unison.

 _It would be eerie, if they weren’t so damn sunny-dispositioned_ , thought Poe. “Good luck, Rey.”

She gave him a toothy grin, unable to keep her growing excitement about her mission suppressed, sliding past him to take the chair next to Finn’s bed. “Thanks! I hope I won’t need luck.”

“If there’s one thing I know, the Force always makes it complicated.” Poe’s laugh was more of a sigh, and then he straightened out, giving them an overly-serious two finger salute and disappearing back into the base.

A moment of quiet grew between them. “Rey…” Finn began, but he wasn’t sure where to start. She looked as lovely all cleaned up as she had covered in grime and engine grease. There was a new light inside of her, he could tell, as well as something quite the opposite. That, he certainly recognized in himself. The First Order had taken a blow, but he knew more than anyone, that they would not stop taking people’s lives, meddling with them.

Rey broke the silence. “Is your back healing well?”

“Just like new.” Finn punched her arm gently. “Poe wasn’t kidding about the Resistance Bacta. What I wouldn’t have given for one of ‘em back in training. Lots of bruises and broken bones.”

“Jakku could have used one too.” Rey looked away, out the window. “I leave tomorrow morning. Leia says it’s confidential.” Finn saw a smile tug at the corners of her mouth, and she directed her attention back to him, eyes alight. She dropped her head closer to him, voice dropping to a whisper. “ _Luke Skywalker_. I’m going to find him and bring him back to the Resistance.”

Many years ago, when Finn was little, he’d had a friend. Their face was blurry, but the warmth they'd brought him was not lost. He remembered laughing with them, giggling when they hid from his parents. His parents…. Those memories were gone, perhaps forever. The First Order had done its damndest to make sure he was a blank slate for them to deface, but they hadn't taken all of his brief childhood. He'd seen the light in Rey’s eyes before, in a different person that had mattered to him. They wouldn't take Rey from him, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are very much appreciated! Thanks for joining us.  
> Updates should be either every Sunday or every other Sunday. 
> 
> We have two betas now, but if you catch any mistakes let us know! 
> 
> What will Poe and Finn find on Ilum, and will Luke receive Rey with open arms?


	3. A Galaxy in Unrest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn, Rey and Poe take on their new roles in the Resistance-- Rey ventures out into the galaxy to find Luke, and Poe introduces Finn to the X-Wing gang. The First Order begins to bounce back from the loss of Starkiller.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who the fuck invented chapter titles, bitch we'll kill you.  
> Sorry for the late update, but thanks for joining us anyways!
> 
> Also:  
> Wait. you guys have been getting bread??? -Finn

The medbay was dimly lit, with only a few soft beeps coming from the medical equipment, but none of the occupants of the room paid it any mind anymore. To Finn, peaceful, content, and highly sedated, softly snoring, the noise was on another planet. Or, maybe, the beeps were in realspace, and his sleeping form may as well have been in hyperspace. They technically both existed, but there was little tether between their realities. 

For BB-8, the beeps meant nothing, either. They were the vital signs of a relatively new friend, one that took some time to get over his lying to the droid, but the beeps were steady and the man was stable. With nothing else to do to pass the time, Beebee was examining the cables of the medical equipment, not really expecting to find anything wrong. 

For Poe, sitting in the mostly dark room, the beeps were just a fabric of his surroundings, as he himself dealt with the fabric in his lap. He had just stopped for a moment with his sewing to look at his work, and, smiling, remarked that only a few more patches were needed to fix up Finn’s jacket. He looked at the cot, and Finn, and wished he could so easily repair the other man. 

Hours earlier, Finn had woken up again, before the healing was complete -- after he’d bid Rey farewell they’d put him under one more time to finish the treatment on his spine. Poe had called for the medical officer, and together with persuasion and sedatives, they coaxed him back into the healing process. Poe yawned, and gave up on the jacket for now, deciding they both needed their rest. He folded the garment delicately, put it between his head and the back of the chair, and he was out within moments. BB-8 cooed softly, but Poe was too far gone to hear the droid remark about how he was taking better care of the jacket than he ever had before.

There was a window in Finn’s medbay room, and through it one could see nothing but green forest. By the time Leia arrived, the sun was setting and golden light filled the room softly. She was standing in the doorway, looking at the former stormtrooper and the ace pilot. The droid was in a rest cycle. She smiled briefly but her eyes held the tenderness her lips couldn’t hold. _These two--they’ll be okay._ She sighed. _They have to be._

She made her way over to Poe, and put a hand on her shoulder, drumming lightly with her fingers. He woke with a babbled gasp, putting his hand up to block the unseen attack, swatting away her hand. “Poe, it’s me, Leia.” Leia hushed, a tad bit amused. Only a few days ago she’d gently awoken Kaydel the same way, as the younger lieutenant had fallen asleep to the droning tone of Ackbar in one of his conferences. Leia knew what it was like to sleep while fighting a war. Some days, there are just no gentle awakenings. 

He blinked hard, trying to force away the dying light from behind the horizon. “General,” he tried to acknowledge without yawning. He stood up, putting the folded jacket by Finn on his bedside. “What,” another yawn escapes, “can I do for you?”

“Unfortunately, Poe, we still haven’t gotten the First Order surrender.” 

“I’m sure it’s on it’s way,” he shot back. “Or do we have to blow up a second Starkiller first? I’m sensing a pattern here.”

She felt like she was on a vibroblade’s edge between laughing and stoicism. She chose the latter; it was time for business. “Jokes aside, we have a lot more fighting to do. In the morning, you two leave. Start making preparations.” She wished she could give him more time, but it wasn’t like he could do anything for Finn here. Better to get him out there, doing something to help the galaxy, and to get his mind off the things he couldn’t fix himself.

“May the Force be with me” he asked, grinning, as he walked past her out of the room, a freshly-charged BB-8 in tow. He froze, and almost sheepishly turned back around to ask. “Finn’s out tomorrow morning. Could he come with me?”

She looked at the slumbering man, and then to Poe, who was giving her his most severe loth-cat eyes, and sighed. “Yes, that’s alright. But be gentle with him. I’m not about to let you drag this poor, _brave_ man around hand in hand, through ice and snow. Bring him back in one piece, please.” 

“Thanks. I’m sure you’d find things for him to do here, but...”

“You want him to come along.”

“I do.”

Leia smiled. _Please let these peaceful moments last._

  
  


▹▴◃

There was a faraway planet, in one of the most obscure places in the galaxy, called Ach-to, where the now-complete map to Luke led. It lurked near the edges, far away from any core civilization, too far even for Outer Rim communities. Her meeting Finn felt like eons ago, but it had only been a week or two since she’d left her home world. Takodana, Starkiller, D’Qar...whole planets that she’d never even thought about seeing. Her family had left her behind on Jakku, and she’d waited so long for them, would have waited so much longer if Finn hadn’t collided into her world. 

And now Ach-To… Takodana’s surface was scattered with lakes and rivers, but this world was almost entirely water. Amongst the roiling, churned seas of the planet was an island, whereon Luke was meant to be. On this island, Rey brought the ship down, with the help of her co-pilot, onto a deep alcove at its base. She had offered twice on the trip to let the wookiee actually pilot--he was good at it, and with Han… he deserved a chance to finally prove it. Chewie had bristled at it, insisting that he was too old to start being a leader now. 

Bidding Chewie farewell and getting wished luck in return, she stepped off the _Falcon_. The sea misted her face, and there was an earthy smell, like salt and life and dirt that washed over her. The ocean crashed against the rocks below her, sending foam up to occasionally splash against her legs. Ahead of her were steps winding up the peak of the landmass, and she wavered away from a sigh, instead clutching the shoulder strap of her bag, and started the climb. 

Each step was a weight on her heart, as though each were a manifestation of the troubles she faced, and had yet to. At the top of the steps would be the answer to the galaxy’s strife, the Lost Hope of the Resistance, the last Jedi, Luke Skywalker, the man who could end the war, bring balance to the Force, and with it a final, lasting peace in their lifetime. Maybe even Chewie’s lifetime. _Wouldn’t that be something,_ she marveled. 

Until the top, until Luke, she had maybe hundreds of steep steps to climb, and she nearly physically felt the obstacles they represented. Step. _Her missing parents._ Step. _Finn’s injuries._ Step. _Seeing the beams of light across the sky as the New Republic was massacred._ Step. _Her first friends, her only friends, back on Jakku, deciding that leaving the planet with her only hope of crawling out of poverty was more important than helping Rey eat more than sand and rations._ Step. _Joining the Resistance and having its survival resting on her shoulders._ Step. _Not knowing if she could let even someone as evil as Kylo Ren die at her hands._ Step.

She tried to heed Leia’s warning about emotions, but all she could think about was her mountain of fears and anxiety as she neared the summit. “I am one with the Force,” she muttered. She was going to chant--she felt like that’s what she should do, right? Chant?--but she couldn’t help but feel relief lying over the last few steps. _Here,_ she thought, _I will finish the climb, and right there will be standing a Jedi, a teacher and a hero and he WILL stop the First Order._

As her eyes came over the top, her heart may as well have been left back on the _Falcon._ There was a rocky clearing at the top, with a hut, a doused campfire, and two trandoshan corpses. She rushed over, blaster ready in her trembling hand, to assess the bodies. The bodies were littered with blaster wounds, and one of them had some sort of boney spike stabbed into his forehead. She pulled it out with a sickening squish, wiping the blood off onto some of the lichen that coated the stone pathway and pocketing the spike, hoping that any sort of clue could come out of it.

“Luke Skywalker!” She yelled, poking her head into the hut. Inside was a rather miserable looking cot, and some overturned baskets, what looked like basic hunting and survival gear spilled out across the floor. Someone _had_ been living here, though she doubted it was the trandoshans, who were outfitted in armor and core-world quality fabrics. No one answered. She called out again. Back outside she noticed something reddish-brown pooled near the fire. She could recognize human blood when she saw it. 

“Luke!” The blood was still somewhat fresh, but there was no sign of him anywhere. She wanted to curl up, right there against the still-warm smolder that was once a campfire, and just… give up. “Poe’s right. The Force….” She hated this moment, hated herself for putting all of her faith in a treasure map, in a wizard, in a fairytale, in a--warm campfire. 

She spun around, making sure. Nothing in her line of sight. “He’s not here.” she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to think. The bodies weren’t warm, so it was more than a few hours since whatever happened here happened. “There,” she said quietly, looking at the horizon. She turned and looked out at the sea in all directions. “A storm is coming.” She stuck her finger in her mouth and held it up, looking again in the direction the wind was blowing. “And going. So, more than a few hours, but less than several. Less than a day, at least.” She crouched down for confirmation, and yes, the ground was wet, but the dead humanoids’ clothes weren’t. 

“Luke…” Rey knelt, pressing her hand to the ground, and thought, almost ironically, that this is what she needed Luke for, so she could learn to sense someone with the Force on her own, learn to reach out to them. On Starkiller, Kylo had _willed_ such an overwhelming presence in the Force that she could have felt him coming from a mile away. The island was small. If he were on it, surely she’d sense it. There was the ocean, pulsing with life, the warm core of the planet, and nothing else. 

She’d have to backtrack, ask Chewie to radar the planet for any sign of human life, but a suspicion wound its way up her from stomach, settling in her chest. Luke Skywalker was no longer on Ach-To, and the map was useless.

▹▴◃

He was saying something, but all Kylo Ren could think about during his master’s lecture to him, was that here, on the _Finalizer,_ with its standard holoprojector, Snoke was normal-sized, and his favorite little intimidation tactic had died with Starkiller. Here, he was just wrinkled creature of darkness and spite. Kylo had the Knights of Ren, Snoke had a second hand knowledge of the ancient ways of the Sith. The grandson of Darth Vader had their power coursing through his blood. 

If Snoke could sense the bitter thoughts, he said nothing, continuing on about the former Solo’s latest failure. “This girl--the scavenger you failed to hold onto--and this defective stormtrooper--who you let desert _my_ army--they are strong with the force. Surely even a whelp such as you can feel it, even when they themselves cannot.” He leaned forward, pointing one of his long fingers at Kylo Ren. “This will present to our opposition a boone, and to you another opportunity to fail me. You are making me question my abilities as a teacher, child.”

He gave a slight pause, almost baiting the apprentice into speaking out of turn. Kylo Ren knew better. Snoke bared his teeth. “And my tactical prowess, for I have clearly put too much faith in you.” 

Kylo Ren was acutely aware that his knights--the six of them--were listening intently to his master, and by extension theirs, berating him, filling the patricidal young man with blinding, searing rage. It was taking all of his being to deny the urge to reach out with the Force, with his hatred, to try and pull apart Snoke’s ship through the holofeed, finishing the frail fool in the void of space. _Patience,_ he told himself. _Soon._

“...And with Ilum’s crystal, we will have finished the work of the Old Empire--destroying every major source of kyber in the galaxy.” Kylo tried to remember the last few moments, but couldn’t. He probably didn’t miss anything important from the dithering old man. “Even should you predictably fail to thin your bloodline, which you won’t if you don’t want me to outright end it, the Jedi--or any so-called light side fanatic--will never again stand against the darkness with a lightsaber drawn. That such an important Jedi temple will fall with the planet is such a delicious treat.”

There was another pause, and the fallen apprentice waited. Snoke said nothing. After too many seconds, his master spat. “Well? Bring me the heads of this scrapper and FN-2187, and you may actually prove yourself worthy of my tutelage, and I daresay the stewardship of this grand order.” 

“Yes, Supreme Leader. General Hux is already at work to find them.” He was doing a horrible job keeping his voice neutral. It was somewhere between wounded but determined and imminently wrathful.

“Excellent.” He was leaning back on his throne now. “Our forces will be ready to destroy the planet--even without our Starkiller--within a few days. You must be precise in these strikes, and should you fail this, it will be your last mistake. You may ready your men.”

Kylo Ren stood up, out of his kneeling position, and forced himself to look the Knights of Ren in the eye--or helmet--and clenched his robotic, durasteel fist, letting the anger from his loss in battle fuel him further into this next mission. Before he addressed them, he sensed that Snoke has not yet ended the transmission. He stopped without turning.

“Vader lost far more than just a hand, child. Remember this.” The holoprojector finally clicks off. 

Disarmed, he forgot whatever he originally meant to say to them, settling on, “Let’s kill these scum.” His metallic hand again closed into a fist.

▹▴◃

Poe was there a few minutes before Finn was officially released from medbay. He’d run into the director of the building, and now leaned against a wall, foot flat against it, chatting to pass the time. Even the Resistance fell victim to the slow but steady bureaucracy of a medical ward. “Not too busy?” 

“I don’t need to tell you, Commander Dameron, that naval engagements rarely leave wounded.” The man had a sunken appearance, his eyes and hair grey, and his face tight. He looked as if he woke up tired. “Not much to do for a pilot when their ship explodes. Not many boots on the ground at Starkiller.”

Poe nodded his head, not taking his eyes off the door to the room Finn would come out of. 

After a few more minutes of politely nodding at the medical director’s fatalism, Finn finally emerged from his room. He was wearing the jacket. 

“Welcome back to the land of the living, pal.” Poe closed the distance and gave him a hug. “How do you feel?”

“Better.” Finn stretched his back a little and cracked his neck. “Better standing than wasting away in a cot. Is the mess open?”

Poe shook his head, “You’re _not_ eating in that dump. Come on, I got something better.”

Finn followed as they went the opposite direction it seemed like food would be. “Wow,” he murmured. 

“What,” Poe asked. They were in Hangar Xesh, one of the four maintained on D’Qar’s base. A heavy clamor of machinery and pilots shouting over the din forced Poe to turn and face Finn. “Something wrong?”

“No, no.” Finn took a moment to look over the ships, all X-Wings here, some heavily damaged, others with only slight carbon scoring. Tools and materials spilled out all around the crafts, mechanics were ducking under wings and weaving around droids and other, larger devices. “I just—“

“Not how you do things on a Star Destroyer, huh?” Poe winced. “ _Did_. Sorry.”

Either Finn didn’t hear the mistake over the general noise of the place, or he ignored it to move past the slight. “Yeah, no. Is that guy—“

Poe laughed and walked over to an X-Wing pilot with a dark beard and short hair. Finn recognized him from the Starkiller attack plan meeting. Poe clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Yeah, he is. Snap here _absolutely_ is repairing his canopy with medical-grade spray adhesive.”

The pilot, Snap, was finishing up and he shrugged. “Hangar Aurek has the industrial stuff. This will do until we can get any _real_ parts in.”

“Don’t worry, buddy,” Poe said, placing his hand on Finn’s shoulder. “Each of these pilots has their own way of doing things—their own tricks, in and out of battle.” As they started to walk away together, he had to steady himself on Finn as his leg came out from under him. A shiny metal tool—Finn wished he could say what sort—rolled away somewhere. “And their own idea of ‘organized’.” He found the tool, and pointed it accusingly at an Abednedo. “That one’s on you, Threnalli!”

At the center of the hangar, some folks were busy eating away at their lunch. Finn was reminded of the austere rooms the First Order generously called ‘commissaries’—more in fact a room where one sits quietly after receiving a protein paste and nutrient broth. “You guys get bread here?”

“Yeah,” Poe laughed. “Unless Sonnel here gets to it first.” 

She shook her head and pulled her pack closer to her to make room. “Sue me, Dameron. I’m from Pamarthe. Bread and fish is all we had.”

Finn didn’t notice at first, but the woman must have had at least a decade on Poe. Finn was gestured to sit next to her and Poe went somewhere blocked by an X-Wing and brought back a couple trays of food. 

“Here,” he sat one down in front of Finn before sitting opposite him. “I convinced the General that it’s conducive to work if we have a spread laid out in the hangar. Less time walking across base to the actual meal hall.”

Finn didn’t really need an explanation of why food was in front of him. After a few days of constant sleep and intravenous meals, he was happy to bite into a small loaf of bread and a bit of indistinct meat. 

Poe spent more time watching his friend go at it than actually eating. He was happy to seek him well again, but he was worried the former stormtrooper was hiding some lasting issues from the injury. He couldn’t just ask him, and anyway, these things took time. 

Sonnel offered Finn a drink, which he immediately took, and looked at Poe. “Did you ask Leia about the _Falcon?_ ”

“General Organa says Chewie’s got first dibs on it.” He shrugged. “Which, I mean, yeah. That’s fair. It’s not like I always crash land or anything.”

“Just the TIE,” Finn poked around a mouthful of food. 

“Okay, yeah. After being blown out of the sky into a desert. Name one other time.”

“Chewbacca’s been with the _Falcon_ longer than anyone, now…” Sonnel looked away, trailing off. 

“Greer, I’m sorry about Han.”

The older woman didn’t look at him. “Yeah. Thanks Poe.” She turned her head to Finn and have a two-finger wave. “Greer Sonnel. I’m mostly a mechanic, which is a shame, since I’m the best pilot we’ve got.”

Finn nodded at her. “I’m Finn.”

She smiled coyly. “I figured as much, considering the way Poe is trying so hard to seem impressive.” 

Finn swallowed hard and tried to change the subject back.”Oh, he can’t fool me. Even I could have safely landed that TIE.”

Poe smirked, “I thought you needed a pilot.”

“Well, maybe I meant to say ‘co-pilot’, smart-ass. I could’ve handled it just fine.”

“Sure, yeah. I’ll believe it when I see it.” Poe noticed Finn was about halfway done eating but hadn’t touched his drink. He still had time. “Let’s talk about the mission.”

His hand moved to the beverage. “Where to?”

“Ilum. Know anything?”

Without hesitation, Finn began reciting facts. “Arctic climate. Sector 7G. In a system of the same name. Nothing but frozen wastes. I’ve heard it was a potential host for Starkiller, but they obviously must have changed it. No other strategic value; it’s way out of the way. No settlements. Nothing but snow.” He almost brought the glass to lips, before adding, “There were rumors going around back when we thought we were gonna get shipped out there that it was an important place for the Jedi.”

Poe nodded, talking quickly before the other man took a sip. “By the Stars, Finn. You’re as bright as they come. No wonder BeeBee likes you.” Poe looked him in the eyes and smiled at his friend.

Finn felt his face get hot. “Thanks,” he said quietly. He wasn’t sure what to say. Poe was a nice guy, and compared to the First Order, he was a compliment-giving machine. He tried to look away, to think of anything to reply with, but came up short. He took a long swig of his drink, and immediately spat it out onto the table and his lap. He sputtered loudly, stood up, and shouted. “What the hell is this? Starship fuel?” He suddenly wished he hadn’t eaten at all. It seemed like more of a liability now, with his whole body retching. 

Poe shook his head, trying not to laugh. Greer Sonnel took back the rest of the glass and downed the rest without expression. “Port in a Storm. Pamarthen specialty.” 

Poe bit his lip. “Sorry, Finn. It’s something of an initiation ritual. Welcome to the Resistance,” he offered with meek enthusiasm. He wanted to tell him that he was sorry, or that he was proud of him not vomiting, but he didn’t know if it would be more embarrassing for him. 

Finn took a second to collect himself and dab at his pants leg with a napkin, but didn’t seem upset. Maybe queasy.

“Congratulations! You’re officially one of us,” Greer gave the man a hearty laugh and a thumbs up.

Finn was about to respond with a dubious ‘thank you?’ but was interrupted when there came a chirping from farther in the hangar, followed by a metallic thud, as BB-8 rolled over to table.

Getting up, Poe snapped his fingers. “Oh, Greer. I think one of the Ticos needed to see you. Yirt Hangar.”

Together, Poe, Finn, and BB-8 made their way to Poe’s sleek, black X-Wing. “Never crashed this baby,” he said with a hand on his hip.

Greer Sonnel’s voice carried from the lunch table as she shouted, “You’ve flown it twice! You lost your last X-Wing on Jakku, too!” Poe waved her away without turning around. 

Finn was still lagging behind, his mind feeling numb just from tasting that swill. “So we’re going to Ilum? Is it because of a Jedi myth? One of those things? Mythical things?”

Poe nodded. “Yeah, Leia’s been there herself before. The planet was the Jedi’s source of kyber. A crystal that powered lightsabers.”

“And super weapons,” Finn added. 

“Yeah, exactly. So the First Order _is_ interested in the planet. Leia said they might try and destroy the old temple there. We’ve got to go in as quietly as we can and observe. Figure out what exactly they want.”

Finn was putting on a pair of leather gloves when he asked, “So—like spies?”

Poe put his hand on Finn’s shoulder, and Poe felt him tense up slightly. Poe’s hand wavers and after a moment too long he tousled the back of his head. Finn noticed Poe was about to say something, but the pilot instead ducked under the X-Wing’s fuselage to check a panel.

After a minute or so, Poe came back around and finally looked at him. He cleared his throat, trying to look casual by leaning on the starfighter. “Yeah, so like spies.”

  
  
  


▹▴◃

The First Order’s training rooms were massive, cavernous, so much so that it was housed on a dedicated ship that trailed behind the fleet nearly everywhere they went, just to house them. The ship itself was considerably smaller than a Star Destroyer, but the ceiling still arched above Phasma’s height nearly forty feet, and an intricately and entirely man-made battlefield of obstacles laid our across the quarter klick area. This specific field was littered with troopers, bellowing back and forth, slightly less lethal blasters firing in every direction. 

Off to the side, tucked away inside an observation booth, stood Captain Phasma. Her escape from the trash pit on Starkiller had been a much narrower than she’d hoped, but with Finn holding a blaster to her chest plate, and a Wookie behind him, it had been her only option. She’d made it out, and she would never allow the defeat to happen again. The entire ordeal had just proved a suspicion she’d had for several weeks prior: the Stormtrooper program required more devout attention. Her best were slipping through the cracks, and her worst should have never been allowed to leave the training fields. 

It was evident that every step of the process needed to be harsher, most of the recruits did not have the cut to be half as ruthless as was needed to take entire systems. The Order suffered a tremendous loss with the troops stationed on Starkiller gone, but already she was training a new batch to ship out. They weren’t quite battle-ready yet, but they’d have to do for the increased recruitment intake-- they were shipping out to Kef Bir, a lonely moon in the Endor System, tomorrow. She was looking forward to seeing what the new batch was made of. With any luck, some trauma would serve these troopers well. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you thank you for reading <3  
> As always, comments and kudos are greatly appreciated.  
> And is it just us or are Finn and Poe getting a little...mushy out here. Oof.


	4. Trouble in Hyperspace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the far reaches of the galaxy, someone new will have to prove how far they'll go for what they believe in.  
> Finn and Poe find that their journey to Ilum does not go quite as planned...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi internet, Oreath here.
> 
> We’re slowly but steadily reaching 1,000 views and we’re really stoked to see interest in our passion project. Heath and I have been missing for a bit (as you doubtless could tell) and I want to assure you that it doesn’t mean we haven’t been plotting and scheming and working on this labor of love and spite. I don’t see us giving up until we’ve finished it and we had to take the month off because, in my case, there were family health events, and Heath was dealing with school and neither of us wanted to move forward without the other.
> 
> We’re excited for what’s to come and I for one haven’t felt this artistically fulfilled in a long time. Please stick with us as we try and wrest control of the Star Wars narrative back from Disney. Every comment, kudo (as of writing it’s at 66, which is nice for nerds like Heath, and I hope it’ll be 69 by the time this is posted, because that’s nice for fiends like me.), hit means the world to us and so if you find yourself enjoying our work, we’d love it if you could recommend it to others who could enjoy this.
> 
> Finally, I’ve posted a second fic on the account. It’s about Hermit Luke having visions about an alternate timeline where Vader becomes the emperor, and I hope it’s the first in a series of fics that we post together and expand on and shape our grand narrative of literary Star Wars. We wish all our readers the absolute best and hope your spring/fall is beautiful.
> 
> Thank you all,  
> Oriana and Heath.

She spoke quickly, looking into the lens of the device. Her heart was pounding. She knew there was little time, but that was exactly why she had to do this. “Pyn Folca. Kef Bir. My sixth standard day away from Rodia. From home. From you all. Kwisk, Relv, I love you both very much. The distance between us weighs on my heart in pain I pray you will never know. I am always with you, even when it seems like I never can be. I love you. Every step I have taken, has been for you. 

“Gwell, my dear brother, please pause this message and take my children from the room. Thank you. This is for you only, until the children can understand better. You and Jaskyll were right. My time is short, but know that I have transferred to you what small fortune I have managed to scrape up on this cursed moon. Forgive me, I fear it will not see the younglings to adulthood. It’s up to you now.

“When the New Republic went up in flames, I just managed to escape Bracca before the Scrapper Guild was replaced with the off-world syndicates. And the roving bands of raiders. So, when my colleague told me that another door had opened, I had to jump on it. The Emperor’s grave held enough doonium for a thousand scrappers to retire in a month.” 

“It was less than a week before the First Order showed up. I should have listened to you two. They have entered the atmosphere, and I fear the worst. I pray that you never have to watch this vid. I love you all, and know should I die here, I will rejoin our beloved Skwebiska.” 

Before she clicked off the recorder, an Aqualish in a grease-smeared jumpsuit walked into the room with Pyn. In the pidgin Huttese the scrappers used as a common working language, he garbled a rushed: “It’s time.”

Pyn Folca stood up, ready to embrace her fate.

**▹▴◃**

She had been transferred during her training twice.Twice, she had to submit medical records from when she entered the Stormtrooper Corps in order to verify that she was free of unsanctioned body modification. Twice, she had to explain to at least a dozen superior officers in the junta’s bureaucracy that, yes, the forms were all there and, no, her left shoulder blade marking wasn’t a tattoo, brand, or mod-scar. That, yes, she happened to have a perfectly symmetrical birthmark in the shape of the Rurakan raptor.

It wasn’t a common myth, but during a physical, an unusually personable First Order medical officer had remarked to her that it was an uncanny match to the supposedly extinct, probably legendary, bird from the planet Rurak. He explained to her that the bird, the Jhannalax, as the Ruraks called it, symbolized the sacrifice of womanhood. The pain expected of them. The duty. The eventual stripping of personhood in service to society. He had laughed about it.

The story he told, the cultural knowledge he held, cut her like a knife. It reminded her that not everyone in the First Order was devoid of a life before service, bereft of a personal history. She eventually forgot about the man, and his despicable laugh at those holding onto what he doubtless saw as unnecessary sentiment. Personable, perhaps, was a charitable assessment. 

Initially, she was CS-4960. Then she was transferred to training under orders she had eventually found out that came from Phasma herself, and then she had to learn that she was SO-0095. It didn’t roll off the tongue, and her commanding instructor, a Clone War enthusiast named Gyllum, didn’t necessarily mind nicknames, so eventually she chose to carry the banner that the unseen, probably nonexistent, forces of the universe gave her at birth. She shortened the name of the bird and took some liberties; the whole point, after all, was to have a snappier name, so. She called herself Jannah.

It was their first assignment after graduating advanced combat training. She was a stormtrooper commando. She passed her training with flying colors, and showed just the right balance of improvisational skills and obedience to make her a squad leader.

This was a job for a squad of commandos, and these four were raring for a chance to prove themselves. New Republic agitators and Resistance terrorists. With the Hosnian System slag and dust, the galaxy was in chaos. This was the crucible into which the Supreme Leader had poured all his resources. Squads like Jannah’s would be instrumental in the coming days, shaping the rioting worlds into desirable forms. First stop, Kef Bir. 

Any nerves she had, she was determined not to show. Captain Phasma had an interest in her abilities, and so apparently steered Lieutenant Gyllum into placing her in command of the rookie squad. She read the files, she knew the mission, and she wouldn’t fail the First Order. She wouldn’t fold on her first real combat mission.

“Alright, planetfall in five minutes, listen up.” She didn’t quite bark the words; she respected her troopers and she knew they respected her. There were three others--Skax, Fyll, and Kur. A holoprojection appeared before her, and she pointed at a point just off the coast. “Target’s the DS-2 Battle Station. More salvage in this cove than half the Mid Rim. Main objective: the focusing dish. Made almost entirely out of pure doonium.

Skax whistled in awe. “Lucky enough to find an arm-full in a mine. Strip mine, even.” He was their resident technician: blaster mods, field repairs to vehicles, droid sabotage.

“That’s because it’s all right there,” Fyll said, nodding at the projection of the terrain. “In the water, I mean. It should still all be one piece--mostly--, right? There’s a reason it was needed to focus the Death Stars’ beams.” Technically, he was meant to be the commando group’s demolition expert, but the clandestine nature of their job meant that in simulations, he was just a back-up tech specialist.

“Exactly,” Jannah agreed. “Half of all known doonium went into these two battle stations. Maybe a third is in old Clone Wars tech.” She didn’t need to mention that a significant amount was at that very moment fueling the star that was once the First Order’s crown jewel. Her troopers didn’t dare bring it up, either.

Nobody would ever bring up the weaknesses of the First Order, but it was plain in Jannah’s mind that perhaps coming back to the galaxy from the fringes of known space was a precarious move. The Empire fell, even when it imperialized every planet’s mines, factories, and shipyards it could. The First Order only just began wholesale occupation of planets. Their infrastructure in the galaxy itself was nearly nonexistent. Which is why their first mission was scavenging one of the biggest imperial graves ever.

“First step is to take the cliffs overlooking the wreckage. Resistance operatives have occupied the area, which means one thing.” Jannah paused, but nobody finished her thought but her. “Intelligence concludes that the scum are planning their own superweapon, or they have a plan to begin full-scale manufacturing of ships. Or munitions. Whatever the case, it’s of the utmost that we go in, neutralize the threat, and establish an outpost as we begin extracting resources. Weapons live, men. The New Republic’s gone; they have nobody left to play nice for. They’re gonna start lashing out like cornered beasts. The more we take out today, the more of the galaxy we’ll be saving from whatever the hell they’re planning. Let’s roll.”

  
**▹▴◃**

Maybe Poe was a little wounded that he couldn’t take his X-Wing. He’d been in the middle of showing Finn where he would sit, when the other man burst out into sharp laughter. Poe stopped, hand pulling away from the seat-adjuster, and it creaked to a halt (which was unbearably embarrassing, considering how much he gloated about the great condition his ship was in). He was now sitting less than a foot away from his dashboard, looking comically small, his knees pulled just a little too close to his body for comfort. He gestured grandly. 

Finn’s eyebrow was nearly raised to his hairline. “You want me to sit there. Behind you.”

Poe could tell he was being mocked, an acidic emphasis on the last word. “That’s the idea, _yes_.”

“No way am I going to get stuck behind you for nine hours, sitting _there_.” He pointed, and then hopped up easily, placing his hands on opposite ends of the tiny space and then moving them to hold that space in front of Poe. “BB-8 would feel cramped there.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Poe grumbled to himself.

“Doesn’t seem very safe. Or practical. Or fun.”

Poe was taken aback. “Fun? _Oh_ , now he wants to have fun.”

“Who are you talking to?”

“My droid.”

Finn couldn’t keep the smile contained. “I wouldn’t stuff him in there. You like me better, don’t you?” He cooed, directing his attention towards the astromech, who rocked back and forth towards Finn in tiny sincere movements. 

“No.” Poe scoffed, and then squinted at Beebee, who was examining both of them silently. “No, he doesn’t...” Poe paused, and then blumbered on, more frantically, “do you?”

Beebee’s head tilted to one side, then straightened again, and he rolled away soundlessly. 

The pilot gasped, and Finn patted him on the shoulder. “You steal my jacket. Then you steal my droid. What kind of traitor are you?”

Finn rolled his shoulders in the jacket. It _was_ really comfy, miles more so than anything he’d been given in the Order-- and as an added bonus, it still smelled like Poe.“The kind that’s not sitting back there.”

“Fine.” Poe crossed his arms and pouted childishly. “No X-Wing...I think we have something else that will work.”

The Arc-170 was one of the few leftover ships from early battles. Mostly disused, but for a stealth mission requiring more than one operative and less than five, it was the best the Resistance could spare. Poe took the front cockpit, navigating them to the frozen planet, and Finn had sat gunner, and though a sense of nervousness ran through him at the idea of getting back into the fight, he knew it wouldn’t be needed. 

In the hangar, they bid temporary farewell to Poe’s friends, who had happily adopted Finn into their ranks. Sonnel stepped forward, thrusting a coat into Finn’s hands. He held it up. The dark orange fabric was thicker than anything he’d worn before, and some kind of fur lined the hood. It looked like the jacket that Han had worn on Starkiller, but somehow it made that look one look light weight. Poe put his on then and there, double checking it’s fit, and suddenly he looked like some kind of Wampa-Human hybrid. The older woman must have seen Finn’s quizzical expression. 

“Trust me. The jacket works. It’s made custom by some of my people, from the arctic ocean fringe of my planet. Thing’s saved my skin more times than I count.”

“Thanks.” Finn blinked, his grip tightening on the fabric. The warmth in her eyes was almost too nurturing and he had to look away. 

“It’s not forever.” She chuckled. “I want that back.”

“Thanks for everything, Sonnel.” Poe clasped a hand on her shoulder and she nodded curtly. Scrambling into the cockpit, he opened the window of Finn’s who climbed into the seat that sat higher and behind him.The crew loaded their gear into the compartment in the belly of the ship. It wasn’t often Poe went anywhere without the cheery white and orange astromech, but the droid sat patiently by Sonnel’s side. With two-fingers raised to his forehead, Poe saluted them. “See you all later.” Within the next minute they were climbing into D’Qars atmosphere, off to another foreign location. 

Falling into comfortable silence, Finn leaned back into the seat, lids drooping just slightly, so he could still take in the expanse without tiring his eyes. The stars were beautiful, they always are of course, but he never had the moment to just breath. And gaze. There are so many of them, some scattered like dust, some look like the sand storms of Jakku, the flurries of Starkiller, some twinkle like pools of water, dark in the night. As a trooper, he’d grown accustomed to the blue streaks of hyperspace interrupted only by the dullness of another First Order interior. Suddenly, like a wave, Finn wish he’d taken Poe up on the X-Wing. He wanted to sit _with_ Poe in this silence. 

Maybe, when all this was over, he could convince Rey, maybe even Poe, dedicated as he was, to just go out and see. He’d spent his whole life inside a building, out in the bitter cold, or shipping out. Takodana was beautiful. Even Jakku, the junkyard it was, held some hidden shred of beauty in the spaces between the sand grains. 

Finn wished he was sitting so close to Poe that he could feel his body heat. When Rey and Finn had sat in the cockpit of the Falcon, he had never felt safer than with her warmth radiating by his side. 

Before they could reach the next hyperlane, Poe’s display lit up with a blip. Then two. Then five. 

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” The screen next to the radar notified him that they were all First Order TIE fighters. Finn sat up straight as a board, Poe flipped the engine switch with a shaking hand. _This was bad. This was very bad._ Frantically, Poe reached for his helmet which rested at his feet. Trying to keep his voice steady, he said, “Resistance Base, this is Black Leader- I...there are fifteen TIE fighters that just left hyperspace right by us.”

The voice on the other side of the comm crackled. “Black Leader- where are you now?” 

“Near Tython.” A TIE fighter screamed past him, but didn’t shoot. Which honestly confused the hell out the pilot, setting him on edge. Something wasn’t right. These things were always just fleets of destruction. It swooped back around, just as a notification of Poe’s own dashboard pinged. “One just scanned my ship.” 

But neither Finn nor the man on the other side of his comm set had time to react, because suddenly all 15 enemy ships concentrated fire on Poe. He jerked up, narrowly missing the first wave.

“Finn!” He yelled, head colliding into the headrest at an awkward angle. He hadn’t even secured himself back into the seat. Finn fumbled with the his own safety straps, before his hands shakily found their way back to the gun apparatus. “I’m so sorry, Finn.” Poe’s voice cracked and before Finn could blink they were gearing up for hyperspace. 

**▹▴◃**

Finn decided that his best course of action was to remain still and quiet while Poe flicked switches back and forth. “We shouldn’t have jumped into hyperspace. But there were too many of them...” His voice trailed off, as one of his displays began to beep. He let out a sigh, and his knuckles turned white. "I like the TIEs that don't have hyperdrives better," he mumbled. 

Finn was about to reply that that was nearly all other First Order fighters, but stopped when he realized which display was lit and felt his heart drop into his stomach as hope dwindled inside him. “They took out our comm unit. How…?” 

“They must have gotten a lucky hit right before we jumped.” Poe muttered through clenched teeth. “I’ve never flown by Ilum. I don’t know the terrain of the region, so who knows if we’ll survive whatever’s on the other side. Brace yourself, buddy.” 

A harsh rhythmic tone signaled that they’d be dropping out of hyperspace in a few moments. He double checked the coordinates- the planet Ilum. 

Finn nodded curtly, his tone serious. “We’ll deal with it when we get there.” The ARC-170 shook under the motion of dropping out of lightspeed, and there was a worrying sound of metal tearing itself apart somewhere on the outside of the ship. The tunnel of blue vanished, immediately giving way to a rathtar-sized asteroid. 

“Look out-” Finn yelled but he was cut off with a jostle as Poe jerked the steering to the left, the ARC-170 soaring past, only narrowly missing massacre. Behind the asteroid was even more of them, though from what Finn could tell, they were much smaller. 

“Fuck, _fuck_.” They wove through them like water trickles around pebbles, Poe’s movements frantic, but still somehow controlled as they continued on a serpentine path towards Ilum. “Hold on, buddy. Asteroid fields got nothing on me.” The confidence in his voice climbed back to a crescendo, and Finn got the sense that Poe was always this boisterous when he was flying. His high flat-lined as quick as it began- TIE fighters had followed him through the jump. 

10 red dots flashed on his display, and they were nearly surrounded in the asteroid belt. They’d been stalked through the galaxy like prey, and while both Finn and Poe felt a small amount of relief that this may have meant that the Resistance was fine, it still left them sitting in space like a prize for starving predators. Finn didn’t want to doubt Poe’s ability, but since the asteroid run Han told him about, technology had clearly gotten better at locking onto a target, even in an asteroid field. And without BB-8 as technical assistance against the natural perils and those that had target seeking missiles, the young man didn’t think they’d last more than a minute. 

To make matters worse, there was one TIE larger than the rest, sleeker and longer. Kylo Ren’s silencer. Finn’s fingers were tingling, gripping the apparatus so tightly it hurt. “Poe. Ren’s here.”

He saw red bolts shoot past them on either side, piercing into asteroids and causing them to shatter into thousands of sharp and blunt pieces, and as their own ship tore past them the clattered against the tough exterior metal, a few hitting the windshield, white tendrils spreading across it from the center of each hit. The exterior metal illuminated orange and yellow as he centered on a target and pulled the trigger, a TIE exploding into flames. 

Poe’s voice was in his ear, breathy and frantic as their ship took a nose dive to avoid both a shot from one of the TIE fighters and a menacing looking asteroid. “If we make it to Ilum, we can lose them in the storm.” 

Finn squinted at the planet, and could see what Poe was talking about. The surface from space was a faint faint green, marbled with white, but one particular area was a massive pearly cloud, crackling with bright blue lightning. Finn knew from experience that there weren’t many ships that could still track with that much interference- certainly not light-fighters like TIEs. 

A TIE fighter screamed past them, spiraling out of control, a piece of asteroid colliding with it’s vertical wing. It was torn, ripped to shreds like it was paper as it crashed into a dozen other small rocks. The two of them thought the same thing simultaneously, with dread and frighteningly potent shame. _He’s going to die because of me_. 

The next few minutes- the frigid shoddy atmosphere entry, the blast shots hitting the wing, the smoke filling the cockpits- they felt like nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no!!! Finn!!!! Poe!!! In danger!!!
> 
> (And as always, comments and kudos are much appreciated. Thanks for sticking around!)


	5. Betrayal on Kef Bir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey reaches out to the resistance about missing Luke, allowing us to meet Rose for the first time. Jannah is flung feet first into her battle on Kef Bir, and it is nothing they could have trained her for. Finn and Poe crashland on Ilum, injured and freezing, they must find a way to survive the harsh planet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always thank you so much for reading. Every view, kudos and comment mean the world to us.  
> We're excited to bring you these characters, and some new ones! We hope this update finds you healthy and safe, and that it might bring you even a shred of joy when the entire world is turning upside down. 
> 
> Now sit back and enjoy some Slow Burn, Mystery and BadasseryTM.

Chewie opened a highly secure channel, input a clearance code, and handed her the communication receiver. She spoke quickly, head tilted to the side to avoid the spray from the cliff, feeling more than a bit ridiculous. “Resistance Command? I need a science-y person?” She grimaced. “Officer? This is Rey,” she said, wondering if she should add, “of the Resistance,” but the moment passed without it.

“Copy, Rey,” an unfamiliar voice said. “Please hold.”

Eventually, a second stranger’s voice came in. “Hello? This is Rose Tico.”

Rey waited for more, but nothing came. She took a breath. “Uh—I found—something. I made it planetside...Thought Luke would be near the summit, but there’s nobody left alive here. He had visitors, two Trandoshans, but I found—”

“Wait, slow down. Who is this?”

Her face reddened and her neck tensed up. She wasn’t  _ good  _ at this sort of thing, and this  _ Rose _ wasn’t helping her handle this. It felt like a game of charades. She was supposed to play the competent resistance member, but she'd forgotten all the moves. Really though, she'd never learned them in the first place. Screaming in frustration sounded nice, but she held it in her throat. There was no reason to scare Rose off and make the situation more complicated. “My name is Rey. I’m on Ahch-To and—“

“Hold on, you’re  _ Rey _ ?”

She blinked. Did she detect admiration? She’d only been there for a few days, and her biggest claim to fame was apparently failing to kill Kylo Ren. She couldn’t imagine anyone—

_ “The Rey? _ From Jakku?”

_ Ah _ . She suddenly wished she would have committed to  _ Rey of the Resistance _ , as she was reminded of her time waiting on that ball of sand and sweat and sadness. She glanced at Chewie for help, but he only shrugged and cooed something about how Han would usually start making up his important stature at this point. She cleared her throat, and finally said, “Yes, erm. I’m _ that _ Rey. Listen, I—I found a tooth or a bone or  _ something  _ buried in one of the skulls on the Trandoshans, but Luke’s not here. I think whoever these Trandoshans were scared him off the planet, either that or he was taken. It’s obvious there was a fight. The bone might be the only lead we have.”

“Okay, wow, I’m not… I think the communications officer thought there was something wrong with the  _ Falcon _ ...” Rey heard through the static of long-range transmission the other woman clicking her tongue, presumably to think. “Okay, normally we’d just do some testing when you got back and a droid or a medical officer could tell you what it is—but this sounds urgent.” Rose sighed on the other side of the line. “Describe it.”

Rey held the piece in her palm. It was very light and rolled gently over her callouses. “It’s yellow, like a stained tooth or old tusk-ivory. Uh, it points up at the top a little bit, and maybe as thick as my thumb at the base. It’s got ridges running up to the point.” 

Rattling noises, almost like the sound of someone working on scrap parts muffled her response as Rose tried to work it out. “I’m guessing you didn’t find any gnawed bones or chewed corpses?”

Rey shook her head before she remembered Rose wasn’t sitting across from her. “No, they’ve been shot from the looks of it. Blaster burns.”

“Then, yeah, I’m thinking humanoid—it’s a zabrak horn...head-spike? I don’t know what the precise term is. Maybe they lost it in a headbutt. That could mean anything in terms of who it was—zabrak bounty hunters, mercenaries, hutt enforcers, whatever. They’re not exactly a rare people, they don't keep to one occupation.”

Rey didn’t say anything. She couldn’t recall meeting one. Jakku had its share of aliens, sure, but most near-humans were in good enough financial situations to avoid ever having to go near Niima Outpost. Besides, not having anything to contribute, Rey just wanted to hear another person’s voice right now. Chewie was a great presence, but still a bit too mentorial to provide the comfort of a perceived peer. So far from Jakku, Rey actually knew friends, and she knew she was lonely without them.

“Except, hang on…” Rose plowed on, either not noticing Rey’s silence, or being kind enough to not acknowledge it. “We do have some New Republic Intelligence reports here… something about a possible migration trend of zabraks returning to their homeworld. Well, one of their planets. I don’t exactly get how it works. This isn’t my field—I’m just a mechanic, really. But I’m a quick learner, see, and I—we don’t have a xenodemographist on staff, and anyway, the New Republic reports here never came to a conclusion. They, uh, didn’t get to follow up. Cause, uh. You know. Yikes.” 

Rey took a second to catch up to Rose. Her heart sank. There would be a sharp downturn in central intelligence with the New Republic shattered into billions of pieces. Following this lead would be harder than she thought. Giving a quiet thank you, Rey signed off and put her head in her hands. The lead could be any member of the apparently prolific race of aliens. Without a solid answer, Luke Skywalker was still a mystery that would never get solved. He could be anywhere; this  _ zabrak  _ could be anywhere. She couldn’t save the galaxy without Luke. Leia had made that pretty clear.  _ I’m over my head. I’m out of my league. I’m no hero, and I’m failing as a Resistance fighter.  _

She decided, finally, to scream, kicking the bulkhead of the Falcon. Something important looking shook loose from the siding, and thunked dully onto the wet stone of the landing pad.

Chewie roared an admonishment, and Rey grunted. “Yeah, okay. You don’t have to tell me twice. I think I broke my foot.”

▹▴◃

J annah, of course, had only been through simulations. Which meant that once they landed on Kef Bir, she only had her training to fall back on when things immediately went wrong.

“Sir,” the co-pilot of the landing craft called. “Life signs indicate several dwellings on the surface. Expect heavily entrenched enemy combatants.”

Jannah sighed, minutely. “Acknowledged. ETA?” Outside, stormy grey clouds on the horizon churned, signaling a nasty battle environment, should this be dragged out too long. It looked like it might be a day out, but she’d heard of these kinds of missions taking a week. 

“Jump in—” The copilot glanced at her console. “—now. We’re over the drop zone.”

Jannah had questions, but she held her tongue and made a dull reply in affirmation. She knew the cost of asking questions in the First Order. She walked back to the cabin of the shuttle and grabbed a pack off the bulkhead, which separated the cockpit from the troop compartment. 

“We jumping? Nice.” Kur snorted, pulling a helmet over her buzzed, fiery red hair. It wasn’t often they saw each other’s faces. The Order liked to keep it that way, keep it impersonal, but it was impractical and uncomfortable to keep the helmet on the entire flight, especially when they needed meals. Jannah caught a glimpse of her toothy grin before the helmet hid it away once again. 

Jannah handed off the rest of the packs. “Anointment by blood.” She cracked her neck and knuckles, and elbowed the ramp button.

There’s a very good distinction between a jump pack and a jetpack. All of their training with aerial deployments involved the jetpack, which either through rocketry or repulsors enabled sustained, precise flight. Jump packs, as it were, were only capable of short bursts, intended to lift their wearers a few feet in their air at once, and then deposit them back more or less where they started. They were also theoretically capable of softening otherwise deadly landings. 

Jannah, thankfully, remembered this distinction as she and her squad went to ignite their packs, only to find themselves briefly propelled in a random direction. She was a  _ real _ stormtrooper, and in Special Forces, and she knew all the gear that could be issued to her. Even as the ground quickly sought them out, she was staying in mind of her placement in life. It was her job to lead the small force, but it was also her job in the First Order to trust that her fellow soldiers would do their jobs competently or die to weed out the weak, foolish, and indecisive. 

Skax was the first of Jannah’s troopers to right himself. He straightened himself out, legs falling into perpendicularity with the surface of Kef Bir, trying to gauge when he needed to pulse against the final stage of descent. Eventually, Fyll got himself under control. Jannah watched with suppressed concern as Kur finally slowed her fall, landing somewhat hard but not dangerously so on the wet turf.

Despite the pervasive sea-mist, the Resistance soldiers were all outside of their makeshift barracks, ready for them. Jannah and her squad had their blasters out first. She stood in front and stared at the one closest to her: a neimoidian in a long synthleather coat holding a slugthower pistol with both hands. He blinked his huge red eyes in a way that reminded Jannah of a mindless pet fish. Finally, she said, “SO-0095 of the First Order. I hereby order you all to stand down immediately. You are trespassing on a military-owned installation.”

The neimoidian scoffed and spoke quickly in choppy syllables. “The Empire is gone. The New Republic is gone. You, too will be gone.” He smirked. “So begone.”

Jannah raised her rifle at the alien when three things happened all at once:

One, a smaller alien, fuzzy and brown—a chadra-fan, she didn’t catch it as it moved so quickly—ducked out from behind a tent and chucked a rock directly at Kur’s helmet. Her noise was one of confusion. They’d resorted to rocks?

.

Two, the neimoidian fired his slugthrower, thankfully wasting the shot on a missed target as the projectile buried itself into a metal barrel several feet away.

Three, Kur laid suppressing fire with her A-400 rifle, with Skax and Fyll following suit.

Those too rabid or foolish to flee were mowed down by the wall of blaster bolts sprayed between the buildings made from canvas and scrap metal.

Jannah was the last to return fire, taking the neimoidian down on his knees. He kept firing back, held alive by his insurgent propaganda, no doubt. The mist refracted the hundreds of streaks of plasma as the blaster bolts flew past. One of the neimodian’s slug-rounds grazed Jannah, just missing her ear, but still she felt hot blood run down her neck. Through it all, the little chadra-fan kept throwing rocks and chunks of salvaged metal. Many more soldiers came to join the firefight, and Jannah and her squad were quickly outnumbered fifteen to one. 

She rolled out of the way of a grenade—the chadra-fan must have had a few ordinances among his rock pile—and, panting as her ears rang from the too-close explosion, briefly wished she believed in the Force, or any cosmic entity for that matter. She shrugged the anxiety off and let out a deep breath. She didn’t need to believe in anything but the First Order. She didn’t need to do anything but follow orders and live to carry out more.

▹▴◃

Finn blinked awake, but his eyelashes were frozen together and it hurt much more than it should. In fact, everything hurt. All he saw was white, washed with watercolor blue, and a dizzying spiral of flurries. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the blinding vista. He clenched his fist, and the fabric gloves stuck to themselves with what looked like engine fluid from somewhere in the ship blossoming into frost. His head spinning, he pulled himself out of the seat and stood, though he shouldn’t have been able to. The transparisteel canopy of his cockpit was ripped off its hinges, fully exposing him to the unforgiving climate of Ilum.

A minute passed, before he realized what happened. The TIE-fighters… Kylo. He’d shot them down. Because Finn was still alive and not a frozen solid corpse, it must not have been more than twenty minutes since he’d been knocked unconscious and they’d crashed. In fact, despite the cold, there were still sparks shooting out from loose wiring at his feet. The dashboard still struggled to display the logistics of the battle. A faint beeping was drowned out by a very wet groan coming from somewhere ahead. 

“Poe?” Finn asked.

“Hey, buddy.” Poe laughed, but it shuddered out as a cough. 

Launching himself out of his cockpit, Finn almost slipped on the slick surface of the ship, skidding down to the lower pit where Poe had been flying the Arc. Blood trickled out of his mouth and Finn grasped one side of his face, dropping down until he was almost sitting in front of him. Poe’s head lolled towards him and his eyes were unfocused, looking past Finn. 

“Are you okay?” 

“S’fine,” Poe said, slow. 

“It doesn’t look fine.” Finn tore his gaze away, surveying the surroundings. Far in the distance was something solid, breaking the white horizon up with dark grey. Some kind of mountain or cliff. At the very least it could offer shelter where the ship, nearly torn in two, could not. “Stay here. Don’t move,” Finn ordered, though it didn’t look like Poe would be going anywhere soon. 

Behind Finn’s cockpit was another compartment for the tail gunner, which they had filled with extra supplies. Finn just hoped it was still there, and that they hadn’t been lost in the plummet. The front of the ship was nearly gone, torn to shreds. A trail of wreckage extended nearly twenty yards behind the tail of the ship. Poe must have been able to level the ship somewhat before they’d collided with the surface. That was an impressive maneuver. The last thing he remembered was the tailspin and the change from the black of space to the white of the Ilum sky. He’d thank Poe. Once they were both safe.

The canopy opened, by some miracle only spiderwebbed with hairline cracks, and he began stuffing whatever he could into his pack. The rations, only about a week's worth, took up an entire bag by itself, so he only grabbed what seemed necessary. Once they found shelter, he could trek back and get the rest if they needed it. He kept his movements quick, despite the restrictions the thick parka had put in place, and tried to remember anything he’d learned about Ilum back on Starkiller. It had two seasons: frigid and less frigid. From the looks of it, this was a storm on the cusp, when the slightly warmer air battled for dominance for the next coming months. It was the only good sign he could think of. 

Ilum had fauna and flora few and far between, but what it did have was lethal. There was a bat-like creature, which had yet to be classified but had been documented as carnivorous, and a panther-like one, also carnivorous. The thought made him impulsively check the surroundings for any sign of movement. He couldn’t remember what they’d looked like in the database, just the vague descriptors. With luck, they would have no encounters. 

Poe had not listened to him about staying still. When Finn had dropped to the ground, he saw that the pilot was sluggish as he pulled his pack out of the pit.

“Poe!” Finn ran up to him, pressing a hand to the other man’s abdomen, trying to steady him as he sagged under his own weight. “What do you need? If I get to that cliff, I can make us some shelter there.” Poe looked bad. “Keep you safe.” He breathed out. 

The man glanced up at him, a stray curl plastered to his forehead from sweat and a shallow cut that had dried. He looked feverish. Finn felt the adrenaline begin to fade and the panic onset. Poe’s hand was clenched to something around his neck. He opened his palm, to reveal a broken chain with nothing on it. “The ring.”

“Poe, we need to go  _ now _ . This storm is only going to get worse—we’ll die out here. I’ll come back for it.” 

Poe grabbed his hand, which still rested on his stomach, and squeezed. “Promise?”

“Promise.” Finn didn’t have the time to be scared. Whatever was wrong with Poe, it seemed internal, which was more terrifying than the storm, but he didn’t have the luxury of Poe panicking now. They had to get to that cliff first. Pack on Poe’s shoulder and an extra head scarf around Poe’s face, Finn bent down to wrap the man’s arm across his shoulders. “Are you ready to move?”

Poe hissed in an inhale. “Yes.”

“Okay. Step when I do.” It was going to be a very long hike. The cold was already biting through his skin wherever it was exposed. He felt like he was turning to stone, slowly, painfully. Step. Another step, Poe’s feet dragging, out of sync. He only hoped that there would be something, old growth, an alcove, a snowdrift facing away, to keep them warm when they got there. Otherwise, this was the end of their story. 

Then came the tell-tale screaming of the twin ion engines. “Poe, I’m sorry. We gotta move faster. I need you to try.” The other man grunted and they redoubled their efforts as the screeching at their backs came closer, and closer, until the deadly fighter was overhead. Finn knew without looking:  _ Kylo Ren. _

▹▴◃

Jannah woke up and groaned. Around her, dust still settled like a great brown cloud, evidence of violence. She tried to remember the last several hours, but they came through painfully like a drill through duracrete. Except, maybe, her head was the drill? Or her psyche was? 

Pain was racing all along her back, which had collided onto the ground,  _ hard _ . She couldn’t hear. She could barely see past the flashing white and red of her vision. The grenade had exploded, and she managed to dive behind some industrial-grade crates, which spared her body most of the blast and put cover between her and the surrounding opposition. She felt a sharp pain moving slowly from her peripheral experience, her nerves steadily pushing through adrenaline to tell Jannah that she was injured. Before it caught up to her, she injected a stim and held her blaster out of the cover of the crates to send a few shots out.

She knew as a leader, she was supposed to know where her soldiers were, but between the ringing in her ears and the after-images burned into her vision, the best she could do was stay alive and keep firing where the enemy last was.  _ Stay alive. Keep up the fight. Save the galaxy. _

Jannah had blinked out the after-images just enough to see a hover-barge with a half-dozen old, pale yellow droids land maybe twelve yards ahead of her.  _ Since when did the Resistance use droids to fight us off?”  _ She shook away the thought, and took a second to survey her surroundings and as the ringing subsided enough, she tried to call out to her squad. “Sit-rep, troopers.”

Kur came up from behind Jannah, leaping over a number of scrap piles and crates, shooting enemies throughout. “Sir,” she said, “Fyll is down but alive, and Skax is going around the back of their camp. He’s gonna try and get to that hover-barge. Says he thinks he can rig its engines to blow. ‘Sow chaos,’ he said.” 

_ It’s too late for that to take out the droids _ , she thought,  _ they’ve deployed already… They look like they’ve just got pistols, but still. They’ll be in position to shoot us soon. _

Suddenly, something dinged in the back of her mind, a sinking thought she couldn’t shake. “Hey, wait.” Kur looked at her commander for a second, intrigued by the hesitation, before redirecting her attention back to the droids. “Something’s wrong. Skax, come in. Tell me about these droids.”

“Right now, sir?” he whispered, skeptical. “I’m trying to be at least a little stealthy.”

“Secure position and talk to me, trooper.” A second passed with no response, and Jannah barked through gritted teeth, “That’s an order!”

Skax growled, but after a minute of heated silence answered, “They’re uh... L-1 units. G-models, the kind the guilds used as labor foremen. Never thought we’d fight them.”

“Foremen?” she croaked, before clearing her throat. Jannah had a bad feeling about this. “What sort of guilds?”

“Sir? Seriously?”

“SO-0106,” Jannah shouted, “I am your commander!” A blast from the crowd shot past her face, a flash of warmth against her cheek. She crouched again, but withheld her fire. 

“Sir. The Mining Guild, they oversaw miners; in the Techno-Union, they actually provided labor in B-1 factories, data centers, the like. They observed scrappers on Bracca, you know, for the Scrapper Guild.”

_ There it is.  _ She reached for her helmet, and said, “Stand down, troopers. Cease fire! This is a mistake, this whole thing was a mistake. These aren’t resistance agents.”

“You don’t know that,” she heard to her right.

“They’re scrappers, Kur! Skax, stop what you’re doing!”

“Even if they’re scrappers, they’re helping the Resistance,” Kur shouted, still firing into the crowd of civilians.

“I don’t think they are!” Kur was supposed to listen to her. She was the commander, she called the shots. Her face felt warm with something like dread, that initial thought fully formed. “They’re just trying to make some credits, the only way they can.” Her troopers continued their firing, in self defense. “Stand down!” She bellowed. 

Everything happened all at once, the chaos of two forces evening the battlefield. 

Jannah fired. Kur crumpled next to her; the stun to the side from Jannah’s blaster would hurt more than she’d intended, but she didn’t know what else to do. The troop leader wanted to cry, or vomit, or both, but she couldn’t afford to do any of that right now. She led her men into a civilian encampment and the truly insidious part of it was either her intel was bad… or the First Order sent them here for  _ this _ . To kill some poor scrappers on a pile of wreckage that the Order wanted. And now she stunned her own trooper, and another was knocked out who-knows-where in the bloodbath, and Skax wasn’t answering her anymore.

She was blinking through the realization when the barge exploded, and the tents of scrap and canvas were leveled in the shockwave. Jannah herself went flying back, her body like a rag doll as she was knocked unconscious, head hitting the ground.

When she woke up in the cell, her head was pounding not for the first time in twenty-four hours. The battle came back to her slowly, the complete failure of it. Sitting up, she groaned. Then, she gathered her thoughts, and looked around. The cell was the same austere metal style of a Star Destroyer, except she knew she was still on Kef Bir. 

“Phase two,” she mumbled. The second phase of the mission was to occupy the cliffside and the moon itself from a deployable base dropped from orbit. An old-school Sentinel base. And now she was being detained in one. 

On the other side of the ray shield holding Jannah, was Kur, sitting in a metal chair with a blaster rifle on her lap, watching Jannah sit up. Her helmet was off again.  _ Out of protocol _ , Jannah thought. Kur leaned forward in the chair, placing her elbows on her knees and sneered. “G’morning, traitor scum.”

▹▴◃

On Ahch-To, night fell, leaving Rey with her harsh reality. She’d spent the past few hours scrutinizing the scene. One of the Trandoshans had a very broken scanner clipped to their belt. She’d fiddled with it for a while, attempting to get it to turn on, but this fancy tech had never been her specialty, and the screen remained black. The back of the scanner had an embossed First Order insignia, which could have meant that they were First Order themselves, which was doubtful considering they did not have non-humans within their ranks, or that they’d found them somewhere. She had shoved it into her sack. Maybe Rose could work with it, and find something else out about the strange scene. 

The campfire crackled, shielded from the rain by the Falcon. The rain had started shortly after her transmission with Rose, and showed no signs of stopping until morning. The horn sat on the ground in front of her, taunting. So... she would go back to the Resistance empty-handed. 

Chewie stood, and wandered over to Rey, draping a stone-grey poncho onto her shoulders, and spoke softly. 

“The Jedi temple?” Rey looked up at him. She’d nearly forgotten that she wasn’t here just to retrieve Luke. The hope had been that he would train her in their ways, as well. 

He nodded, and pointed up towards the summit. It was too dark and wet to venture up there now. In the morning, before they left, she’d go. 

  
  


▹▴◃

“The beauty of it, of course, is that nobody expects anything more than that they’re on the scent of a bounty. Any suspicions, anyone who may see them acting dubiously, would ascribe it to their search for their quarry...you  _ are  _ getting this, aren’t you?” Hux stopped gazing out the viewport of his office, which had a sprinkling of white stars off in the distance, and the nebulous cloud he’d gotten accustomed to, and turned to face his assistant. “Hello?”

“Oh, sorry, sir. I didn’t know if that was part of dictation or not.” The younger man was nervous, of course, to be in the presence of the most powerful officer he would ever meet. “Which is to say—yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“A bit wordy for a typist,” Hux mumbled, and then he snapped his fingers. “Begin again… now. And for this reason, of course, Trandoshans make for uniquely effective spies, even against the most sophisticated assassin droids.

“And of course, I have results. Just now, a transmission was received from an incredibly distant planet—classified, naturally. Which I will play and have transcribed… now.”

Hux pressed a button on his desk, and a noticeably distorted, interference-corrupted projection of a Trandoshan played on screen. “Heavyzzzkt—Resistance—zzz—Skywalk—,” the spy said, before being hit against a wall or rock by unseen forces. Ribbons of light surrounded him, and he was pulled apart by invisible hands. 

“Another chief benefit to hiring Trandoshans, thankfully, is that they are a dime a dozen and always raring to—” Hux paused as a light on his desk started blinking. “Cease transcription.” He activated the channel, and the image of Kylo Ren hovered next to him. He looked about as hulking and broody as always. “I expect you have good news, Ren?”

“The Resistance pilot and the defective stormtrooper are dead. I have seen to it myself, and I confirmed it just now. I buzzed their last known trajectory, and there were no lifesigns. The planet is again empty. Our enemies are dead. Now we just have to get the girl.” 

The image clicked and his masked face was gone. He turned back to his assistant, who looked increasingly concerned that he was being forced to listen in on things he shouldn’t. Hux said, “Begin again… now. After receiving a classified report from Kylo Ren, I can confirm that the former FN-2187 has been terminated, along with his co-conspirator Poe Dameron. Cease transcription. I think we’re done for the day.”

“Sir,” the young officer asked. “Should I really be recording classified communique?”

Hux grinned. “This is a different sort of classified. This the sort that I know will be cheered about throughout the First Order. A defector and a pilot, both responsible for more kills than any one stormtrooper, have finally been eliminated. And how lucky you are, to have been here to hear it.”

▹▴◃

He’d been sure they were done for, when he’d heard Ren’s fighter. But then, strangely enough, as quickly as he’d flown by, he’d gone. Finn waited tensely, listening for another sound of an engine, but besides the howling blizzard, it was silent. Finn counted his lucky stars. Maybe the Force cared about him, just a little. 

By the time Finn stumbled into the cave, his companion was out. Poe’s head bobbed as Finn struggled to maneuver him through the crack in the ice, which was barely big enough for one of them to fit through, turned to the side in single file. After a moment where he thought Poe may actually be stuck, they both toppled into the cave. Finn righted himself, and looked up to a dizzying visage. The ceiling of the cave was illuminated a deep and crystal blue, the ice must have been several feet thick, encasing the natural stone of the cave. Some sections were brighter than others, alluding to holes that reached the surface. Though the light was dim outside, the nature of the refracting light was bright enough that he could see the rest of the environment without need of the light he’d brought. 

Poe’s moan brought him back down from the enchantment. Poe’s scarf was bloody near his mouth, and Finn knelt down next to him, coaxing him to lean back against the smooth glassy ice of the wall. The cave shielded them from the storm enough that Finn could pry Poe’s jacket off of him, revealing a shirt that was damp from sweat. Slowly, the pilot was coming to. 

“I need you to look at me, Poe.” Finn whispered. And he did. Finn winced. One pupil was bigger than the other, and he could see a minor bump swelling on the side of Poe’s temple. He must have hit his head in the crash. The pilot had taken the brunt of the crash. Where the back of the ship had remained mostly intact, the front had been shredded. That included their comm systems, he knew. He would just have to count on the Resistance getting worried when they didn’t make their check in transmission. 

“You have a concussion, Poe. Keep your head against that ice. I know—I know it’s cold, but it will help the swelling. And when I say don’t move, I mean it, you stubborn geezer.” 

Poe, though hazy, caught the comment and curled his lip indignantly. “Hey.”

That was the reaction he was hoping for. Meant Poe was still here. His smile was small as he pulled a slim vacuum-sealed pouch out of the second pack. Bacta-grade pills, or at least something as close to it as they could get. He pulled out their cask of water. It was small, but with all the ice around them, he was sure he could get more when they ran out. “Take this,” he said, pressing the pill into Poe’s palm. He stared at it blankly. Finn sighed, and took it back, pressing it into his mouth, and then tipping the cask to Poe’s lips, which were still splattered with blood, so he could wash it down. “Now rest. I’m gonna make sure we’re secure, then I’m going out for just a moment to grab some of that brush outside. I can make a fire that way. Keep us warm. Then I’ll figure out what else is wrong. Don’t. Move. A. Muscle.”

The fire was slow to start, having to melt away about a decade of hoarfrost from the sagebrush. Finn found it odd that there was any flora at all, if he was being honest. It must have grown before the current ice age. When the sparks finally started to catch, and there was a familiar sizzling sound of water vaporizing, Finn sat next to Poe. He’d fallen asleep, cheek pressed against the ice. While Finn had been gone, Poe had carefully tucked a scarf around the bump, so only it was exposed to the ice, and now his mouth hung open just a little, puffs of breath disappearing after a second.

He remembered the time Slip had gotten a concussion during training, and had almost not woken up the next morning, but Poe had already slipped in and out a couple of times. He would be fine.  _ He had to be fine _ , Finn thought. He pulled out a scanner from the medical kit. Though it shuddered to life because of the cold, it was still able to scan him in one attempt. He held his breath as it assessed the data.

A minor fracture in one of his ribs, internal bruising nearly everywhere, a cut on the inside of his mouth where he must have bitten his cheek on impact (that explained the profuse bleeding), a concussion (as he suspected) and several cuts around his body from shrapnel. 

In other words, it was a complete miracle that he was in one piece. He’d saved them both. It caught up to Finn, and he let a sob or two cry out into the cave, which echoed eerily back to him, like the cave was alive, weeping with him. He took a moment to collect himself before he found the cuts on Poe. They hadn’t bled much, and they were thinner than he could have hoped. He dressed them and made sure to clean them thoroughly. The entire time, Poe remained asleep. 

This man had saved him so many times. He’d been fighting to keep him alive, somewhere in the galaxy, through the worst moments of his life. It felt like a debt that could never be paid off, but Finn would try.

As a last minute thought, he scanned himself. A much milder concussion, bruising along his back and chest, and a couple of hairline cuts on his own neck that he hadn’t noticed until now. His back was sore; the tissue there still trying to recover from Kylo’s saber. The turbulence had not done it any miracles. Finn went over to the entrance of the cave and fixed up a makeshift trip wire, attached to an icicle that would deafen with noise when it shattered, and then curled up next to Poe, listening to his rhythmic breath like it was one of the few comforts left. The pilot was radiating warmth, and soon sleep carried them both off to a softer world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! As always comments and kudos are much appreciated <3


	6. Sapphic Touchdown & the Mystery Cave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens, and the cave just might be haunted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can no longer find the strength to find vague chapter titles when so much happens in each chapter. Now we are funny. -Heath
> 
> Happy (delayed) May the Fourth!

Rey was ahead of Chewie, now, as her heart swelled. Again, she climbed the ascent of steps to the collection of huts at the top of the hill, with her hope tempered by a measure of disappointment as tangible as the rain hitting her synth-weave poncho and as cutting as the wind lashing across the island. 

She was more disappointed with herself, now; the mission to find Luke may have lost its  main lead, but there was more for her here than an assignment from the Resistance. Finally, cresting the hill once more, she stopped and exhaled her inquiry. “So, what did you want to show me? What do you think is here?” She tried to keep any excitement out of her voice, but then scolded herself for being afraid of showing Chewie her emotions; Jakku’s isolation still weighed on her but she knew, rationally, that her Wookiee friend wouldn’t manipulate her. She had nothing to hide from a friend who had saved her life a few times over now.

He grunted softly, and pointed a curly fur-covered arm at the hut that seemed to have been the main habitation. 

She did a double take at her friend. “Really? How do you know?” He purred at her, and she shook her head. “Okay, okay. I’ll try and have some faith…” 

The room was stale, the smell of parchment and stone and standing water had mingled into a scent not entirely unpleasant. The stone brick walls were covered in moss. That’s what Finn had called it on Takodana. She had never seen it before that planet, but now she knew it was everywhere good and growing. If she were an old Jedi Master, where would she have stowed the Force’s secrets? Something caught her eye, and her smile was crooked as she dropped to the ground. Under what was probably the bed frame, which seemed to have been a rectangular frame of stones from elsewhere among the ruins, there was a loose stone. Under that, there was a parcel wrapped in cloth. She undid the fastener and looked over the book in her hands--old, leather-bound, embossed on the front with white letters. She gasped, and then read aloud, “ _ The Journal of Ben Kenobi _ … Ben?”

Chewbacca, standing behind her in the doorway, snorted, and said something in a huff.

“Really? So, this is Luke’s master’s?” He nodded once and growled. “ _ Obi-Wan _ Kenobi? I see,” she said, making a note to look him up when she got back. Until then, she had a book for the trip back, and a friend she could pose questions to.

To his credit, he told her everything he knew about his brief time knowing the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. He told her that Kenobi was summoned to Alderaan to lead the Rebellion, but missed the planet’s destruction by the Death Star. He told her of their capture and the subsequent rescue mission that Luke, Han, and he went on to find Leia while Kenobi went to deactivate the tractor beam, enabling their escape. He told her that in the end, he let Darth Vader kill him.

“He just… collapsed,” Rey asked. Chewie did his best to explain it. “So he just vanished--no body, nothing, and he was dead? And that was that?” He shook his head, and told her what Luke had said to his friends about the shot that destroyed the Death Star and about him seeing the master’s ghost on Hoth, which led him to Dagobah, and to Chewbacca telling Rey about his old war buddy Yoda, who happened to be a great master of the Jedi ways himself, and taught Luke what he knew.

It went on like this for hours, and Rey absorbed every detail that Chewie described secondhand of Luke’s journey to becoming his own version of a Jedi, and the path to defeating the Emperor. Too soon for Rey’s liking, they were back to D’Qar, and she made the Wookiee promise to come find her later and tell her even more of his past, even prior to him meeting Han. He told her about the Clone War battles on Kashyyyk, and fighting for his freedom on a Trandoshan moon alongside Jedi. 

“D’Qar Base, this is Rey. Transmitting clearance codes now.”

A woman’s voice answered. She wasn’t sure if she had heard it before. “Copy, Rey. You are clear to land. We’ll meet you planetside.”

Another smooth landing, and they were gracefully in the landing zone. A couple of women rushed over to them, clipboards under arm and hair tied up in a fashion she realized was common for the resistance. 

“I’ll handle the debriefing, if you want to get some rest,” Rey offered the Wookiee, who growled appreciatively and wandered off. 

“Rey,” one of the women shouted as she bounced over. “It’s me! Hi! It’s nice to meet you. Again. Kind of. Not really, I guess--it’s nice to meet you!” Rey smiled tightly at the woman, about to ask for a name when the woman shook her head. “Sorry, I’m Rose Tico. We talked on the--”   


“Hello, Rose. It’s nice to meet you too.” Rey tried not to sound tired, but it was a long trip and she still hadn’t digested the full range of emotions and intrigue encountered on it. Rose’s voice was light and airy as she gushed about research she had already done for their potential lead. She was more enthusiastic than Finn, which she hadn’t believed possible until now. They’d make good friends.

The other woman extended a hand to Rey, and smiled. “Kaydel Ko Connix. I was the one who cleared your landing. I’m also going to be recording your debrief.” Rey remembered seeing her in the base before she’d left. 

As Rey fished around her pockets and bag for the bit of ivory she found on Ahch-To, an A-Wing flew overhead, circled quickly, and landed daintily a half dozen meters down the landing strip from the trio. Out of the fighter came a woman who at a distance looked like a taller, slightly more slender version of Rose. As she got closer, and the resemblance became more striking, Rose waved her over. “Paige! Look who it is. Paige,” she called out again. 

Paige shook her head and smirked. “Hi, you must be Rey.” She put a hand on Rose’s shoulder. “I’m Paige. If you can’t tell, I’m also a Tico.” She jerked her head to Rose. “We’re sisters.”

“No, I can tell,” Rey blurted out. “I’ve never seen two people look so alike!”

Paige laughed, giving Rey a quizzical expression. “That’s… kind of weird, Rey.”

As she was about to apologize, Rose cut in. “She’s from Jakku,” to which Rey just nodded.

Paige smiled at Rey again. “That’ll do it. So she’s never seen  _ two humans  _ at the same time.” She brushed her sleeves absent-mindedly. “How about before these two interrogate you, we all get a little something to eat. I could use the excitement after a patrol.”

Rey, realizing she once again had a chance to eat actual food, nearly pulled something in her neck nodding as vigorously as she did. 

  
  
  


▹▴◃

He was cold. So cold his fingers would turn to ice. It was the snow. He was buried in it, flakes accumulating over him and Rey. Any minute now there would be an awful rumble from deep within Starkiller, and then there would be no more cold. Only heat for just a second or two. And then nothing. Blackness. Whiteness. Both, impossibly at the sametime, overtaking his mind. 

_ Jedi _ .

What? 

He was standing in the middle of the cave, illuminated from the outside by two moons. Everything was bathed in a deep, cool blue. He turned to catch a glimpse of the speaker, but he was alone. 

_ Jedi _ .

The voice was indescribable, trailing off until it was just the noise of the cave. Water, ice, the breath of frost and cold. Suddenly, Finn realized that what had once been a solid wall of ice had melted until it was a thin barrier blocking a black hall that led deep into the cave. He pressed his palm flat against it. It was nearly impossible to detect, a minutiae of stimulus, but the ice was vibrating, emitting a soundless ringing. 

_ Finn _ .

_ Finn _ .

“Finn!” 

He turned. The light in the cave was no longer blue but bright, and Poe was struggling to stand up along the wall. He winced, favoring his right side as he used the wall as a crutch.“You okay, buddy? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

The ice  _ had  _ melted; looking at it now he could see that the hallway indeed extended deep into the cave, a forked path just visible in the dim light. 

“Finn?”

“Yeah. Sorry, sorry.” He rushed over to Poe, gently easing him upright, and lifting until the man was standing on his own. 

“I think you were sleepwalking. Scared the bantha dung outta me when I saw you get up and stare at that wall for five minutes without saying a word.” 

Finn pressed a hand to the back of his neck. “That wall was solid yesterday, foot thick.”

Poe gave him a strange look. “The miracle of fire?”

“I don’t know. I had the strangest dream. Someone was talking to me from behind it.”

Poe wouldn’t admit it just yet, but a chill ran down his spine straight to his toes. He’d heard stories about haunted planets. Victims of planetary massacres he’d yet to see first hand. He didn’t remember Ilum being on the list, but he knew they didn’t always make the cut for documentation. Sometimes they just died— senselessly, alone, forgotten.“Yeah? What did it say?”

Finn sighed, and dropped down on his bum to stoke the fire back up. The room was still vaguely warm, but it was better to keep it as warm as possible before another blizzard brought the temperature back to freezing. Poe wouldn’t believe him.  _ Finn  _ wouldn’t have believed him. “I don’t remember.”

▹▴◃

“You have something for me,” Phasma asked as she got up to tower over a stormtrooper. 

“Report came in, sir. Kef Bir.”

“Excellent. Dismissed, FN-7844.” She watched with satisfaction as the trooper left as fast as he could. She relished having that much power over the nerves of her subordinates. Placing a holodisk into the projector built into her workstation, a stormtrooper suspended in light in front of her. “SO-0106? Where is SO-0095?”

“Sir, there’s been complications,” Skax said. “Jan--excuse me, sir, SO-0095--has been detained for defying mission directives. Kef Bir was occupied by ex-members of the Bracca scrappers’ guild, and she incorrectly assumed this meant they were civilians and not, in fact, terrorists. She contradicted her intel and we apprehended and arrested her. I have assumed control of the mission until assigned otherwise.”

Phasma thought for a moment of her options. She didn’t quite think SO-0106 had it in him to lead his squad, let alone a garrison base on the moon. On the other hand, her instinct of who was and wasn’t stormtrooper potential had been so clearly tested lately. He handled a traitor better than some had, as of late. She decided, then, that she would wait and see how it played out. “Your actions are commendable,  _ Sergeant _ . Have you deployed your modular base?”

“Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. We are set up and awaiting reinforcements.” He hesitated for a moment. “What should we do with the traitor? And with the surviving insurgents?”

“The criminals are skilled scrappers, underneath all their treachery. Watch them closely but employ them in the service of the First Order. As for SO-0095... “ She was once again unsure. She had recently ordered a full evaluation of her army to ensure there was complete compliance and conformity amongst her ranks, and the reprogrammers were at capacity at the moment. “Hold her until further notice and try to find out if this is part of something larger. See if she has had any contact with anyone outside of the First Order. Make sure she’s simply naive and not a fully-fledged spy. Dismissed.”

She sat in her desk chair and let out a short sigh. She was going to have to personally oversee recruitment. Possibly expand the recruitment of adults, as well.

A month ago, she had no problems--the First Order had a massive base, a superweapon, infrastructure, and more troops than there were battles to send them to. Now, she was working with a patchwork of an army.  _ Like the rebels _ , she lamented. She quickly snapped out of her milaise and got back to work coordinating her resources.  _ We’re better than them. We’ll always be better. _

▹▴◃

It wasn’t long before the sounds of plasma torches and barges and metal scraping against metal was heard again across what they had unimaginatively begun calling Death Star Bay. Scrappers and repaired droids were forced to work for the First Order’s goals. And there was Jannah, alone, in a cell, in a stockade module of the deployed base. Not that she was ever  _ left _ alone, though. One of her (former, she had to remind herself still, though she suspected this had dragged on for days, with the pain always in her gut) squadmates was always watching her through a security console installed on the opposite wall of the room from her cell.

Still, she only saw them when it was time for her to be fed.  _ First Order Handbook, Volume 3 _ clearly stated as Jannah remembered it: “Prisoners, including prisoners during wartime, shall be given no less than three meals a day, equalling the minimum nutritional daily values as outlined in Article XVII of  _ First Order Handbook, Volume 1,  _ regarding non-combatant, non-officer personnel of the First Order.” Jannah didn’t know what the exact specifications were, but she knew she was left  _ damn hungry _ after every “meal” of protein pellets and green-ish water. She tried to tell herself that it was because the backup hadn’t come yet, and therefore the others were still on strict field rations. She didn’t want to face another sin against the Order in which she had been raised. She couldn’t yet let herself believe that war-crimes were a recurring facet of the First Order.

It was always either Fyll, who left her with her meal without saying a word, or Skax, who taunted her, ridiculed her for her lapse of judgement, who told her that she was  _ better than this _ . It was never, not since the first time she came to in the cell, Kur. Kur, who Jannah had hoped would be the most forgiving, or at the very least charitable to her. Kur, with whom she thought she had bonded with the most during training. Who kept the others in line during drills, who she suspected recommended to Lieutenant Gyllum that Jannah be the leader of their squad when they graduated training.

Jannah flinched when she heard the door slide open. She expected the worst, Skax’s disgust, but looked up to see Kur. She sat the tray with her daily water and tablets on it down and took off her helmet. “We need to talk. I don’t have long before they check in on me.”

“Is this a trick? This seems like a trick,” Jannah said, trying to keep her voice neutral. 

“Shut up!” There was a deadly sharpness to Kur’s usually low voice. “Why did you defy our orders?”

Jannah, who was used to Skax saying things like  _ thank you for the promotion _ and  _ you gave up the only life you’ve ever known _ , had never been asked anything other than taunting rhetorical, was taken aback. She gathered herself for a moment, and slowly said, “I… Because I had to? We’re supposed to protect the galaxy, not slaughter it. This isn’t the mission we were given, Kur, this is… we shouldn’t be forcing civilians into labor, we shouldn’t kill the people in the galaxy scraping by in a world without the Empire. We— ”

“There’s no  _ we _ anymore, Jannah,” Kur shouted. Her voice bounced around the stockade, and the shame hit her as the soundwaves rebound. In another flash of anger, she slammed her helmet against the wall. “You gave up on us! On me! We’re  _ soldiers _ . We aren’t the ones making decisions because we can’t see the bigger picture! The Supreme Leader, General Hux, Kylo Ren--you think they’ll just tell anyone their grand plan for galactic peace and prosperity? You think we’re  _ meant _ to know? To question them?”

“Do you think we’re meant to kill whoever they tell us to?”

“Yes,” she bellowed. “I mean, no. I… I don’t know! And you know  _ why _ I don’t know, Jannah?”

Jannah looked away from Kur’s face and stared at the ground. “Why? You grew a conscience?”

Jannah could have sworn that Kur whimpered before adding, “Because of you. You and your  _ stupid _ choice, because of your sudden  _ betrayal _ of everything we’ve ever known. And then we swept the living quarters of the camp, making sure we collected all the weapons from the prisoners, and I found this.” She was holding up a holodisk. “Do you want to know what’s on it?” She didn’t wait for Jannah to answer, and Jannah got the impression that had Kur lost her momentum, she’d never say what she wanted to. “It’s a woman. She’s saying goodbye to her family. She thinks she’s going to die. Do you know why? Because we’re landing. Because the First Order is coming, and she knew it was a death sentence.”

Jannah said nothing, but looked back at her friend, and saw that she was losing a fight against tears. She swallowed, and despite everything that her squad had done and said to her the last few days, she felt nothing for Kur at that moment except sympathy. “Kur, listen, I--”

“Don’t, okay?” The hand not holding her helmet under her arm clenched into a fist. “Don’t, or I’ll actually listen to you, and I--I--I can’t be given the same decision you were. I can’t do it, Jannah. But I can see why you’re here, and I know why I can’t be in here with you. I can’t choose between purpose and doubt.” She put her helmet back on. “I can’t be you.”

▹▴◃

It was like a shadow was following him through the cave, flashes of dark out of the corner of his eye. Maybe Poe was right. The cave was haunted. Shaking his head, surprised at his own gullibility, he stirred the small container of portions heating over the even smaller fire. After this one burned down to just ashes, that was it for the brush outside of the cave leaving them with the option to either venture farther out and face whatever Ilum had to offer alone, or wait here and hope on the Force that the temperature didn’t drop to lethal. 

“Think the Resistance has noticed we’re gone?” He asked. 

“Yes.” Poe was staring blankly at the thinning ice wall. “But with no way to warn them, they may get shot down just like us.” The pilot himself sounded thin, like his spirit was being stripped until it was just the barebones standing, like a house of cards. Finn had to admit, the situation was bleak.

The Resistance could send help, but it would be a task in itself to find them on the planet and it was already a race against time. Finn hadn’t told Poe, but he’d checked one of the few functional pieces of tech left, an emergency scanner unit. It told him all kinds of fascinating information about Ilum. One tidbit was more urgent than the others: the planet would have a twenty four hour eclipse in two days. It was unlikely they’d survive. 

“We’ll get out of here. I believe that.” Finn whispered.

Poe looked at him, a very small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “That’s my Finn, always up and at ‘em... ready to go...” He trailed off, chasing another thought. “Hey, you seen that ring I alway carry?”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t. When we crashed you were pretty upset about it, but I didn’t have time to look. I should have, I know it means a lot to you.” 

“Nah, that’s okay, buddy. I could have left it on D’Qar for all I know...all that excitement to leave.” Poe closed his eyes, and leaned his head against the wall. He looked like he was getting better, physically at least thanks to the medication Finn’d given him. His eyes had gotten clearer and already, the bruises on his cheek were healing. “I just wanted to go on another mission with you.”

Finn paused stirring the food, biting his tongue in thought. Candor was one of Poe’s strongest qualities. It was easy to tell that the man wore his heart on his sleeve. Poe was magnetic, contagious. If he said jump, Finn realized he would ask how high, because the pilot had gotten them this far on enthusiasm alone.

It wasn’t like Finn himself wouldn’t care openly, deeply, he did— he always has, but it had been so long...maybe even never, that anyone had reciprocated. Now he had Rey and Poe. They’d just have to wait now, and hope on hope that the Resistance found them in time. 

▹▴◃

Above her huge, cantankerous waste vehicles floated by, creaking and groaning under the burden of all the junk they carried, some of which would occasionally slough off and plummet to the surface, only adding to the sea of old droids and destroyed starships. The junkyard was almost planet-wide, home to the waste of a good portion of the Core’s garbage. A cold rain had begun to fall, but it didn’t feel cleansing like it should, centuries of grime infused with the planet’s hydro cycle, ensuring that nothing unlucky enough to wind up here would ever really be washed clean. 

Her steel toed boots battered into the scraps on the ground as she traversed the field. Ahsoka Tano wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for, anything Imperial or Rebellion would do. If she was lucky enough, she’d actually score an undamaged droid head. This mission wasn’t her most glamorous, but the Resistance had asked for favors, and it had been on the way down her chosen hyperspace route. No matter what, if she had the time and resources, she would help.

Frankly, she was still surprised this dump (or any) had an active intake. The piles were growing as she watched. The Empire might have been an autocracy ruled by the greatest evil the galaxy had ever seen, but they took the time to keep hyperspace lanes clear, just like any other galaxy wide government before, and surely after it. They cleaned up their own mess--all the better for shipping their armies and navies and the under-the-table, off-the-books trafficking of slaves, drugs, and illegal munitions. She hoped that the New Republic was more charitable in its efforts to maintain infrastructure. Not that it mattered anymore. 

She was brought out of her contemplation by a beeping coming off of her wrist comm. She pressed a button. “Hello?”

“You know it’s me, right? It’s pretty much  _ always _ me.” Ahsoka smiled, and truly relished the unabashed familiarity of the voice. “Any luck with the locals?”

“Yeah, and you were right--a guy pointed me to where he reckoned the scrap from Scarif would be. Probably. He said ‘over there’s the pre-war scrap. Oldest Imperial junk we got.’”

“Lovely.” Ahsoka could hear her smile, even over the comm. The woman had always carried such genuine warmth through every conversation. “So that’s our best hope for this… Have you seen D’ako yet? He’s  _ definitely _ only concerned with money, but he’s also looking to do favors for friends; friends who owe favors lead to money, after all.”

Ahsoka let out a small laugh. “I haven’t seen him yet, but trust me--I know the type.” She did, certainly, and flashes of memory popped around her as she thought about Tito, about all the seedy types who did service or at least contracts for the Rebellion, and about Hondo; she never thought he’d actually come around to being a half-decent person, but Ezra did it. Somehow. “Thanks for the contact, Riyo. I owe you one.”

The thrice-former senator on the other side of the commlink clicked her tongue. “No, you don’t. I don’t care about favors or the credits they can bring me. Just your friendship.”

Ahsoka waited until the commlink’s light went dark again and continued her search.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. The plan is to update again very soon!


	7. Answer the Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, our beloved idiots. What's good. 
> 
> Another update. That's what good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [OMINOUS CHANTING] CRYSTAL CAVE CRYSTAL CAVE EATING BUGS EATING BUGS

The nights were always dark and always quiet. Which means, when he heard the creature’s tell-tale screech, he knew it couldn’t be anything else. Keeping low and creeping amidst the tall tufts of dead grass, he had set off a few hours ago in the direction of the sound. If it were even possible to entertain the notion of observation here in this place, under the permanent layer of clouds that blocked out the stars at night and held the day suspended in twilight, he would look to the observer a dirty, shaggy man armed with only a spear and a dimly-lit glowrod. He was clothed in tattered robes imprecisely cut shorter to minimize the chance of being caught or dragged on anything in just such a delicate situation. He would seem to be tired, hungry, and deeply pained. He would seem to have had an unimaginably hard life. Such an observer would be correct on all accounts.

The nights were always long, and what he guessed was still several hours before dawn, he came upon the silhouette of ruins, a large complex in the distance. He wondered to himself what its origins were as he stalked nearer and nearer. It seemed like the ideal place for a predator to hide and wait for unsuspecting prey. He decided that whether it be some long-forgotten, bombed-out zoo or the shell of a research lab, it was the lair of his query.

“Okay, this is it,” he mouthed to himself in sequence with his internal monologue. “If I’m right about this…” He shook his head, matted hair rustling almost imperceptibly. “This won’t be easy, but if I’m right, I’ll have food for a month.” He briefly wished in that moment for a better weapon. A blaster. A vibrosword, even. This was an idle wish, for whatever was left on this planet was lost to time and decay in the acrid heat of this world.

The ruins were upon him then, and he passed through the large archway which once greeted those who once trod its halls. He came upon a hallway and turned right, his glowrod shedding its low light onto pale yellow smooth-hewn stone walls.

His heart caught in his throat when he rounded a corner and came upon the skeletons of two stormtroopers, armor lost or chipped away in the ensuing decades after death. He centered himself and inevitably came across another skeleton, clutching a staff. He bent down and silently said a belated prayer to the humanoid’s entry into the Cosmic Force. He took for himself the defender’s staff and propped his spear against the wall, leaving it in the hallway.

Eventually, he saw a spot ahead of him where the hallway opened up. He turned his glowrod off and slowly made his way forward, listening for the slightest sign of his query. In the darkness, he just made out a large, ovular pit surrounded by seating. A forgotten colosseum. As the realization dawned on him, so did the answer as to why the creature he sought was on this desolate planet in the first place. The screech of the Acklay bounced off the crumbling walls around him, small pebbles at his feet vibrating with intensity. 

He took the staff in his hands and was surprised to see purple light reluctantly erupt from both ends of the weapon. No longer hidden, he allowed himself to say aloud, voice creaking after perhaps days of disuse, “Really? This might actually be easy.” He wished it would be so as the beast launched itself from the stands above and landed deftly on the ground of the pit.

The Acklay charged him, its six legs skittering as it let out another warbling cry, and he hit the ground in a puff of dust, rolling out of the way in time to avoid being trampled by its armor-piercing legs. It, in turn, reeled from the electricity crackling at the end of his staff, screeching and faltering backwards. It flailed its head side to side, inadvertently in its repulsion to the weapon backing itself against the wall of the pit.

“You really don’t like this thing, do you,” he asked, preparing to strike its underbelly and swiftly kill it without much suffering. As he went to deliver the killing blow, the crackling electricity fizzled out and they were again alone in the dark.

He was knocked, hard, against the side wall of the pit, almost immediately as his weapon failed. He struggled for his glowrod, set it to max and tossed it in the middle of the ring. Lying prone, he had half a second to roll out of the way of certain death as another sharp, chitinous leg came down where his neck would have been. Wherever it had landed, the staff was now nearly useless and, regardless, out of sight and of reach.

The backup plan was to climb the wall of the ring, bait the acklay into charging him, and backflip onto the beast.

He got about as far as climbing the wall before the acklay dug razor-sharp teeth into his shoulder and lifted him into the air, launching him indeed into a forced backflip. He handed again, hard, on his back, and the acklay again raised its scythe-like appendage high into the air before the beast missed its prey entirely, and sank its belly onto the tip of a spear, releasing one last, fleeting screech.

For his part, the hunter was staring at his hands, trying to remember exactly when he summoned the spear to his hands from the hallway where he left it. He coughed out an exasperated sigh. “Damn.” He shook his head and winced as he felt sharp pain from his shoulder when he went to wipe blood and sweat from his face.

It took him a few minutes to find a length of chain, and he tied the legs of the beast together and tentatively tried dragging the carcass over his good shoulder. It would be a slow trip to camp, but it would do. He took the time to retrieve his spear and find the staff and started the journey back.

As the sun came up over the constant canopy of dust and gas clouding the atmosphere, he finally made his way back to his camp. He groaned loudly and in the growing light he managed to find amongst his makeshift, scrap-metal hut his nearly-depleted first aid kit, using his last stim canister on his shoulder wound. He rested for a few moments and then began searching the cockpit of his starfighter for his fire-starter.

In the shadow of his X-Wing, Luke Skywalker prepared to roast the larger than life insect in solitude.

▹▴◃

In the cockpit, Kylo felt his knuckles going white from how forcefully he gripped the control column, his blunt nails digging into the black gloves which he rarely took off. Something akin to panic rose in his throat, but he would be damned before he acknowledged it.

That traitor… Eluding the Order’s retribution every single time felt erroneous, something like the beginning of a worrisome pattern. One that was becoming clearer day by day. Was the Force protecting 2187? That seemed unlikely. He was cannon fodder. Leaving the First Order wouldn’t change his fate. He was born to die for this war, he would always be nothing, insignificant in their grand scheme. 

_And yet,_ Kylo thought, _he wasn’t_ . How? All troopers were screened for sensitivity shortly after introduction to the program. The only way he could have evaded the screening was if there was a flaw in their system. Captain Phasma would be hearing from him the second he landed in the hangar. Kylo had been told that he was one of the few in all of the Order who could wield and mold the Force with his will. He and his Knights were the graced, not this meager soldier. Why would the Force choose him— he was nothing. _He_ **_is still_ ** _nothing_ , Kylo corrected himself. There was little likelihood that the two blumbering fools would survive Ilum’s eclipse. He and that irritating Resistance poster boy would freeze to death soon enough. 

Ren just had to be patient. Kylo knew that if word that he failed reached the Supreme leader, even with eventual results, that he would receive no mercy. He couldn’t let the sniveling General Hux, find out, but the weasel would pry the secret out somehow, his spies always lurking. Ren could not turn around to finish the job either. It would pry Snoke’s immediate attention. Unless… Perhaps he could redirect Snoke’s attention, distract him with a feat so bold and tide-changing that he’d forgive all his accumulating mistakes. He glanced to his side. The saber still rested against his calf, heat pluming out through the extra ventilation slits in the hilt, even though it wasn’t ignited. It wanted to wound. 

“This is TC-2083 on Finalizer, Silencer which hangar are you docking in?”

He didn’t respond, the pull of the saber thrumming at his side.

“Silencer, come in—”

“There is something I have to do.” With a rumbling growl, Kylo punched a coordinate into his navigation. “If you value your own life, tell no one I was ever back. If the Supreme Leader finds out, I’ll cut your head off myself. And scramble the tracking signal for my ship.” He barked, pleased with the orderly’s stuttering reply. Soon enough everyone would obey him, fear him. 

  
  


▹▴◃

“You had to have heard that!” Finn cried out, incredulous. 

Poe looked up at him from where he had plopped himself, a small, obliterated communication device he had salvaged from the wreckage between his legs, metal pieces freezing into the ice floor by the second. “Nope.”

“Someone is talking to me from down that hall.”

“I believe you.” Poe sighed, lips pursed unhappily. “I just don’t like it one bit.”

Finn’s eyes narrowed, and Poe could tell he was going to say something about ghosts, before his expression changed entirely, brightening.“You can stay here and do...whatever that is. I’m gonna go find them. Maybe they can help us.”

Poe pointed his small screwdriver at Finn accusingly. “See, I knew you were gonna say that because why not go into the scary tunnel where it’s not safe when you could just hang around the fire with your pal.”

The cave had become warm enough that he could remove the extra, more fluffy coat, but the hall was dark, and cold air hovered in it’s archway, stagnant, so he snatched it from off the floor, pulling his hood over his head with a huff. “Stay here and wait for the Resistance, then. I’ll be back.”

“No,” Poe said, standing up slowly, his injuries still fresh. “Friends do dumb thing together. I’m going with you.” 

  
  


Drops of water melted from massive hanging stalactites, _plink plink plinks_ echoing through the extensive chamber, orchestrating haunting sounds that surrounded them. If someone were to sneak up on Finn, he wasn’t sure he’d hear them coming, or at least know where they were coming from. The cave was permeated with an eerie presence, some areas lit up, light refracting from outside, marking where there were cracks along the cliff and the day could slip in. These areas only cast other areas into darker shadows. There were no signs of life anywhere, and the place smelled like freeze, which after years of living on Starkiller was now distinct to him: an earthy smell of water, entombed and sharp. 

Ahead, the ice-slick path parted into several directions, deep sapphire pools between each branch sat completely still. It was clear this was some kind of game, and Finn wasn’t entirely willing to play.

“Which way?” Poe asked, a puff of white dissipating in front of his face, revealing a nervous expression. 

“Let me listen.” Finn closed his eyes, felt his chest rise and fall, felt where his boots were firmly planted in some frost. He was surprised to hear not only his own heartbeat thump, but also Poe’s, pattering away. He pushed past it, listening for the voice. Once he pushed past their bodies, past the ambience of the cave, there it was, a hollow and sweet sound. 

_Finn_.

His eyes jolted open. “The second path on the left.”

As they made their way, the ground became treacherous, sharp stalagmites of ice covering most of the surface, except for, curiously, evenly spaced spots, which neatly fit his footprints. If either were to slip, they could easily pierce through skin.“Be careful, Poe.” 

“If I die because of some icicles, maybe I deserved to go.” Poe muttered, but he still stuck out an arm to grab the back of Finn’s jacket, where his pack was slung to the side. With his head injury, his balance was off. It would be far too easy to tumble to the side. “Just don’t leave me alone.”

“I won’t. I promis— “ The ground beneath him cracked, and looking down, he realized with dread that this cave was directly above another. The sound of the ice shattering below was deafening, like the wind chime back home on D’Qar but multiplied by a thousand. Finn’s stomach turned inside out as they fell into the dark.

By some miracle, his head missed the surface when he finally landed on solid ground again. He had landed in something soft. Holding his gloved hand in front of his face he realized it was snow. It still hurt, but it could have been much worse. He could have landed unconscious in the small lake to his right.

**_Poe_ **.

The pilot was sputtering water out of his mouth, clutching at the icy shore to no avail, with the water soaked gloves he couldn’t grip anything, or he risked being frozen directly to it. 

“Hold still, hold still. Tread. I’m coming to you.” Shaking, Finn stood, his knees felt weak beneath him, and something warm was trickling down his shoulder. The scar on his back _throbbed_. 

_Jedi_.

He ignored the call, kneeling by the surface and praying that it didn’t collapse under his weight, toppling him into the water. Holding his hand out, Poe grasped it, floating towards the edge until he could prop his elbow over it. Finn grabbed his elbow with his other hand and heaved all of his body backwards, until Poe was pulled far enough out that he could land his own knee onto the ice. 

“I got you.” Finn whispered. “I got you.” They collapsed together, Poe shivering violently. Frost was already spreading along his waterlogged clothes, and his dark curls were now white, sparkling. His normally tawny skin was turning blueish by the second. 

“Finn, I don’t think I’m gonna make it out of this one.”

Finn knew all too well that hypothermia could kill. 

_Jedi_.

Lodged into the wall beside him, something betan to glow, emitting a soft, warm yellow light. A crystal, small, no bigger than his pinkie. Gingerly, with what little strength he had left, he pried it out of the ice. It was warm, and sang clearly. Sang of choice. 

_Jedi_.

This time the voice ignited a rage within him. It had led them here, and now his friend was going to die and it was his fault. He should have just listened to Poe, then at least they would have been comfortable for just a little bit longer. 

His jaw clenched so tight that it popped. “I’m no Jedi.” 

Gently, he tucked the crystal into the other man’s hood. The warmth wouldn’t save him, but at least it could offer an ounce of comfort. Poe stirred and began to cough. It escalated into a fit, his lungs sounded like they were going to give out. His eyes were nearly frozen closed, but he could see him watching him. 

“No, no no— ” The cave went silent, and Finn scoffed, pulling Poe closer, tears freezing in the corners of his own eyes. The water was now soaking into his own clothes too, but if he froze to death, he didn’t care anymore, “You led me here. Just save him.”

▹▴◃

Rey could feel a tug, like something gently pulling her heart strings, and she glanced up at the sky, dusty pink. Finn was out there somewhere. Hopefully his mission was going better than her own. She was surprised at how quickly she missed him. No comforting hand to rest on her shoulder, his smile like the moon, illuminating, pure. 

“Welcome back, Rey.” 

Rey bonked her temple against the doorframe gently, realizing she was lost in her thoughts again. “General. Have you heard from Finn?”

“No,” Shaking her head, her tone became almost motherly. “I told Captain Dameron to get his ship Comms fixed a while ago. He kept saying he’d ‘get around to it’. He does this— loves to make me worry myself to death. I’m sure they’re fine, but if it makes you feel better their check-in cutoff is tonight. After that we may start to worry. But, let’s not talk about them, I’m sure Poe would love it if all we did was fret.”

The picture was painted almost too clear in her head, Poe grinning cockily when he found out they were all worried sick over him. He might be handsome, Rey thought, but he’s not so handsome Organa wouldn’t hand his own ass to him over an inflated head. 

I’ve read your report.” Leia cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes at Rey. “Did Rose help you write this?”

Rey’s cheeks felt hot very suddenly. “Yes, sorry, we ate lunch together and she and--”

“It’s fine, Rey. I’m glad you’re making friends. The Rebellion, the Resistance, they were both predicated on the idea that there are people worth fighting for and fighting beside. It’s what sets us apart from stormtroopers.”

Rey looked down at her still-steaming tea and didn’t meet Leia’s gaze for a few moments. 

Leia cleared her throat, and when Rey looked back at her, the General was reading off a datapad. “This lab analysis confirms that the bone fragment you found was indeed a piece of a zabrak’s horn. The thing is, it’s got a significant amount of trace minerals consistent with Dathomir. That’s _very_ interesting, Rey. We’re going to figure out what the hell they were doing on Ahch-To and what they want with Luke.”

Rey gave a rueful smile. “I just wish--if I had been a moment sooner, I’d have been able to find him.”

“It’s never that easy, Rey. I’m sorry I led you to believe it was.” In her eyes was a sly but sincere knowing, like Rey still had much to learn. Leia nodded her head. She thought for a moment. “You know, Rey, in the days of the Empire, when Luke was feeling at his most vulnerable and lost, I think he found great comfort in that journal you’ve found.”

The journal was tucked into her bag back in her temporary quarters, right next to the saber. Both were Rey’s smile was half hearted, still avoiding direct eye contact. “What do you mean? Why did he feel lost?”

Leia shook her head and blew on her cup of tea. “When we met General Kenobi, he was going to teach Luke to be a Jedi Knight, and I think he saw the same promise our father did, but in a gentler soul. I think he was going to try and teach Luke everything he could about the lost Jedi, and about the Force, but whatever he had planned was cut short when Obi-Wan sacrificed himself so we could escape Vader and the Death Star.”

“So then he didn’t have a master.” Rey snapped her teeth into a hard snack biscuit, trying and failing to catch the resulting crumbs. She could never get the hang of eating without making a mess.

“I think he came to Luke a few times through the Force, but yes. Until Luke went to train with Yoda, he was left completely alone while the Force awoke in him. He had little idea of how to achieve the legacy Obi-Wan tried to show him.” She closed her eyes for a moment and sipped her tea. “Still too hot,” she muttered. 

“Well, I know what it’s like to have no one. No one to help you, no one there to show you how to live your life. It must have been awful.” 

It went on like this for a while, with Leia telling stories and Rey mentally taking notes about their past adventures. 

“So— wait—why was he called Ben?” 

Leia held back a wince and tried to smile. “Because we weren’t going to name a kid Obi-Wan Solo. It just didn’t sound right,” she joked.

Rey didn’t know if it was a joke or not and pressed forward. “Sorry, no--I meant why _Ben Kenobi_? If he was hiding why didn’t he change his name completely?”

Leia took another sip and sighed. “I knew what you meant, Rey. It’s just— I don’t know if it’ll ever be an easy name to hear. Take away the painful loss of my child and it’s still the name of the monster who killed Han, and drove Luke into hiding.” A lonely pang shot through the woman’s heart.“Short answer: I don’t know; long answer: the Force works mysteriously and if Artoo hadn’t found him, none of us would be here and Palpatine would still be clinging to life somehow and killing anyone he couldn’t outright control.” She took a deep drink and frowned. “Not that we’re all that better off--”

Leia froze, the white of her eyes showing, her grip on the cup loosening. It shattered to the ground. Terror bloomed across her face. Rey was about to ask the General what was wrong when the feeling attuned to her mind as well, a blind unyielding rage from across the galaxy. Immediately her muscles tensed, and her fingers twitched for a weapon. They both fell into silence after that, and it felt as if death itself descended upon the room. Rey and Leia met one another’s gaze and wordlessly, arriving on the same agreement: if they did not act instantly, surely doom was upon them.

Leia pressed a comm control on her desk. “All battle leaders: report to the war room immediately.”

▹▴◃

The cave would eat them whole, and they would remain here, a testament to the cruelty of the Force. Poe’s breathing was shallow and staggered, he could barely hear it over the sound of the water gently lapping against the shore. His hands were cold, so cold he felt like his fingers would snap if he clenched them. 

Around him, what seemed like thousands of crystals hidden in prisms of ice began to glow and twinkle, blues and greens illuminating the surroundings with an almost iridescent quality. It was like a starry night, or the glimmer of a nebula cloud captured in the smallness of the cave. 

_Hey, kid._ A voice pierced through the foggy silence, it was like gravel beneath a boot. _Freezing to death is no fun, I should know. I tried it once. Look, I’m not even supposed to be doing this, but listen._ It was clear that the man was not in the cave, but somewhere else, lonely, isolated, on a planet where things went extinct. Finn wasn’t sure how he knew that, but he did. The only way he could describe it was as though he were throwing his mind elsewhere so it could catch a glimpse. A dusty field, a man sitting around a dying fire, some kind of bug-like carcass cooking over the flame. _If it wasn’t over for me, whoever you are, it’s not over for you, either. There’s still work to do. And you’re right in the center of it somehow._

The “how” of “somehow” distorted until a spiral of echoes contorted Finn’s senses and the calls of “Jedi” passed around the room as crystals pulsed in a ring, faster and faster until it suddenly stopped, and the word “Jedi” was just a low whisper. After a moment of still silence, the crystals began to faintly glow a harsh red, and the word was replaced with a hiss from an all-too familiar voice:

_Traitor!_

Like a radio turning off, the static in his mind went out and silence drifted back. 

He was just closing his eyes again, unable to distinguish the cold of ice with that in his own body, when he heard footsteps, heavy boots crunching snow. It drew closer and closer until a seemingly distant yet determined voice fell upon them. “Finally.” the voice echoed through the chamber, “I’ve got you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YEAH.


	8. Trouble on D'Qar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren confronts a figure from his past.

“Report to the war room immediately,” Leia had said, slowly but forcefully. She told her combat leaders what was coming, and ordered them to gather their forces. And, without exception, everyone made it. People had to spillover into the hallway, but there it was: the full strength of the Resistance headquarters. She just hoped it would be enough. “The First Order is coming.”

Now, she was watching as soldiers marched back and forth across the compound, gathering supplies, activating defenses, and arming themselves. Technicians prepared starships and manned turrets. Pilots loaded their droids into their sockets and climbed into cockpits. 

In the war room, Poe’s absence had loomed large. She knew in her heart who would lead Black Squadron in his absence, but her mind wasn’t so sure. Still, the nagging at her peripheral senses told her here was but one choice, and that extrasensory feeling seemed in charge of her mouth, as she said before the leaders and soldiers alike of the Resistance, “Rey, you’re leading the orbital defense as Black Leader.”

The crowd erupted with confusion. Snap furrowed his brow, “Hey, wait, are you sure she can--I mean,” he tried to frame his words as diplomatically as possible, “I know she can fly that junk heap, but a starfighter? And lead while she’s learning?”

“She can fly it. Hell, she could probably build one from scrap.” Leia said, not looking at Rey but guessing she was looking at the older woman with some sort of look. “ _ And  _ she can sense Kylo Ren.” She swallowed as the din of the crowd hushed completely. “And take him out.”

“Other than that, the fighters will be doing their best to pick off easy targets until we can get our capital ships loading and flying. If we can’t win the fight, we need to be prepared to run.”

Now, Leia stood in the middle of the runway, her dress billowing around her as dozens of starfighters swept into the atmosphere, trying not to hope that Poe and Finn fell into the battle at just the right time. 

▹▴◃

“You get my A-Wing,” the woman leading Rey announced proudly. “ _ My  _ A-Wing. Leia won’t let me fly her. Oh, I’m Greer. Greer Sonnel,” she said, patting Rey on the back. Her black hair was pulled back practically, in a style similar to Organa. Her hardened expression seemed out of place, contorting her soft features like some invisible strain was pulling her down.

Rey blinked. “Aren’t— aren’t you going to fly it?”

“‘Its’ name is the  _ Ossifrage _ , and no. Leia doesn’t let me fly her. It’s a, uh, medical thing. So, she’s yours. Y’know, until they can cure my bloodburn. So don’t get her turned to slag in the meantime.” Greer gave a sort of look Rey took between a smile and a grimace. “I’m not even supposed to do anything more stressful than refuelling.” Her eyes popped and she blinked rapidly. “Which--shit, okay.” She patted Rey on the back. “You go kill Kylo Ren.” Her mouth didn’t move, but Rey swore she heard the woman say, softly, “For Han.”

“I will,” Rey murmured, not sure who she was trying to reassure, as the Pamarthan rushed off. Rey climbed into the cockpit and 

As the ships rose through the clouds, Black Squadron formed behind her and called out their signs. Rey felt numb to it all, and was too busy trying to plan for the unplannable.  _ The Force,  _ she thought,  _ should just tell her what to do _ . She took a deep breath.  _ It will, _ she imagined— someone: Luke, or what she expected Luke to sound like, or maybe Leia, or her parents, or…— telling her. Somehow, it helped. 

“Black Two standing by,” she heard Snap say, his voice even and— excited?

_ I’m flying, _ Rey reminded herself,  _ I get to fly a starfighter. I’m fighting the good fight. I can do this. _

“Black Leader standing by,” Rey said with a cleared mind and a steadied voice. 

”Jade squadron behind you, Black Leader.” It was a voice Rey didn’t recognize, but an inkling of memory told her it must belong to Commander Doza.

A string of Sullustese.came over the comms and Rey figured it was Nien Nunb. He was declaring the same report for Red Squadron.

Whatever calmness Rey had begun to cultivate was now being eroded by something that she wasn’t quite sure was just the pressure of these real people, of the Resistance as a whole, being in her hand. It was something less esoteric. Something real and urgent and something that felt like gravity on her very essence. She dismissed it as being _ actual gravity  _ and shook her head. It didn’t leave her.

Soon, the ascent out of the atmosphere was complete and her dozens of fighters were floating in wait for the First Order fleet to overtake the absolute void before them.

It didn’t. After several moments of wait that felt like years, Snap piped up. “Well?”

“Just give it a minute. It takes a while to mobilize as many Destroyers as they’ve got,” Doza said. She clicked her tongue. “At least we’ve got that advantage on them.”

“I’d rather have the huge ships,” another voice quipped. Rey didn’t know who it belonged to and she couldn’t make herself think about it. She was somewhere else. She was being pulled by that same phantom gravity still, and her thoughts with it.

A brief moment of clarity came and with it, the sudden crash of three Star Destroyers into realspace. Rey shook her head and cleared her throat, ripping at the controls furiously. “Engage,” she shouted. 

The nearly twenty ships under Rey broke off into their respective formations as swarms of TIEs poured out of the massive Destroyers. The Resistance ships shared with their enemies a sort of screeching dance in the void of space, and Rey did her best to stay alive and make calls for her squadron.

“Black Two,” she said, racing to intercept a TIE following Snap, “You’ve got a fighter on you.” She hoped on hope that she was using the right words. “Stay your course, evade the best you can, and I can— ” the tracking system beeped as the shot was lined up. “Got it,” she cheered as two bolts of light shot from the  _ Ossifrage _ into the offending TIE. 

“Thanks,” Snap said with an audible amount of relief. “Now we just need to do that another— four hundred? — times and we’ll win.” His X-Wing darted off to pick off a TIE going after a Red Squadron Y-Wing attempting to make a run on the closest Star Destroyer. 

“Black Five here— ” a voice called, “I’ve got two on me. Gonna swing around, need someone to— ” Rey watched in horror as the burning shell of a Z-95 Headhunter barreled over her canopy, missing her by what looked like mere meters.

Rey tried to steel herself, and managed to whip around in time to get the TIE who took the shot. In doing so, she left an opening as another, sleeker model of TIE locked onto her. Rey saw on her radar a couple of missiles shooting towards her, and managed at the last minute to loop around a second TIE in tight enough timing that the missiles couldn’t correct, and exploded into the other First Order fighter. 

Rey shot wide bursts of laser rounds when she cleared the other side of the exploding TIE and managed to take one of its wing prongs off. It continued shooting off volleys at Rey’s fighter, buffeting her starboard side and sending metal shearing off. Data panels in her cockpit turned a threatening orange as the damage was reported onscreen. Rey tried not to panic.

“Careful,” Doza called to her. “You’ve got a Silencer.” Her X-Wing shot a torpedo right through the cockpit of the advanced model TIE, and her ship swooshed through the cloud of gasses where it once was. “You gotta hit ‘em  _ a lot _ harder than the bulkier ones.”

“Thanks,” Rey responded, but she could hardly hear herself over the pounding in her chest. 

Doza sped off but called out to the other Resistance fighters, “Okay, everyone just stay together best you can and fly safe. We have to stall them until Rey finds Ren or until our larger ships are loaded and take off.”

Rey felt that same feeling of weight in her core, and felt an acute sense of dread.

“General, how much longer? We’re heavily outnumbered,” Snap said, a little bit shaken. “Rey, any sign of Kylo?”

She couldn’t help it, her hands began to move the controls of the  _ Ossifrage _ without realizing what exactly she was doing or even why she was doing it. Snap said something else, but she couldn’t make out distinct words anymore over the chaos of battle and the feeling of absolute dread and anxiety enveloping her mind. A TIE screamed past her and her targeting computer again beeped, but Rey didn’t take the shot. She tried to shepherd her attention back to her, to the war around her, but it was still—elusive, still gone to wherever the rest of her senses were trying to pull her.

Finally, she realized why Snap was shouting, “General Organa? Are you there? What’s happening? Black Leader? What the hell is going on? Rey get out of it, we're being routed!” There was another scream, followed by a pop of static, and someone else was dead. But Rey couldn’t bring herself into the fight, because she realized what about this felt so wrong:

  
Her fight wasn’t here. It was back on the planet.

▹▴◃

Down below, Leia watched the sky turn into a stretch of bursting explosions, pops of yellow and orange fire lighting up the atmosphere and overtaking the stars which had just started to show themselves as the sun set. She had never been much of a pilot, but watching her fighters up there always made her wish she had spent more time with Han. 

The Destroyers loomed now too, and she only hoped that the squadrons had prepared themselves wisely. She had her own battle now. Though he had used an immense amount of stealth, and attempted to shroud himself in the vibrant Force of D’Qar, Leia had still felt him draw nearer. There was no reason to warn Rey, better she face her battle with a clear mind. Now he was close, must have been somewhere in the building itself, storming through the halls and following their connection right to her, like a red string left behind in a maze. 

The slight hiss of depressurization as the door slid open behind her gave him away before his molten, angry bellow did. “Your resistance scum aren’t here to protect you now, Organa.”

She stiffened, facing him with her backbone a straight edge of all the strength she could muster. There was a fresh, deep scar cutting across his face, still red and tender. It looked like it hurt. But even as a child, he had used scars from playing to fuel something inside him. The energy of something dark that she had tried so hard to ignore, hoping it would die on its own. It hadn’t. He was so much older now, he’d grown so tall. His hair was longer than what was practical— like Luke, like Han. The hilt of a saber unlike anything she had ever seen rested in his hand. She felt the pull from it, corrupted. 

Her heart fell into grief, but still she stood her ground. If the Force brought this to be, she would face it too, just like everything else. “Ben.”

He raised it, aiming narrowly towards her chest, brow furrowed. There were still several yards between them. “You threw me away.”

“No,” Her voice wavered slightly, but there was no point in hiding her fear anymore. “You went with your loving Uncle— to train, to learn.”

The saber remained deactivated. “Because you couldn’t bear to look at me anymore.”

“I never felt like that… We never thought that about you. Han, he— “ The saber crackled to life, and it shuddered like it was built wrong. All the edges in the darkening room illuminated a harsh red. “Because I wanted what was best for you, so you could understand your power. So my father’s past wouldn’t catch up to you.” 

“I— “ He growled, lurching forward, so close she could feel the heat from the blade. “You— -” Stumbling over his thoughts, he raised his other hand, forming a fist, squeezing. Air pathways closing, she gasped, her own hands reaching up to her throat, scrabbling for the hand she wouldn’t be able to pry away. Her vision began to haze, but he didn’t waver, his eyes narrowing, reflecting the fiery light. 

Her thoughts began to slip away, somewhere dark, she couldn’t follow them. She barely heard the whistling wreckage in the sky before it collided with the ceiling, the force shaking the floor out from under both of them, shrapnel whipping past her. He tumbled over, and suddenly she could breathe again. Her lungs gasped for air, and she turned on her heel, fleeing the wreckage before he could find his own footing again. 

#### ▹▴◃

Rey’s heart pounded in her mouth, like a stone. There was a burning a hole in her chest where her courage should have been. He was here, it was a foul energy around her, she could taste a sourness that was hard to swallow. On Starkiller, something had awoken in her, back in that dark forest, and it was there now, a  _ feeling _ . Ren reeked of a wrongness then, as he had barrelled right towards them. 

Clambering out of the cockpit, she took off sprinting down the runway, which was now littered here and there with the wreckage falling from the sky. Grey smoke spiralled up from the bits of metal, glowing flakes of ash kissed her clothes. 

_ What if he already got to her?  _

Wetness glossed over her eyes and she bit down on the inside of her cheek hard, angry at herself for always being so quick to weep and fall prey to vulnerability. If Kylo had done anything to Organa, Rey would have felt it. The General was here somewhere. Out of the corner of her eye she sensed movement, and she drew closer to the building, where she would be out of sight. Shimmying along the wall, which was still warm to the touch from the summery day, she strained to hear who it was. 

“Confounded dress—” A familiar velvet grumble muttered, and Rey sighed in relief. 

She broke her cover, nearling toppling onto the older woman, whose long robes were caught on a jagged edge of what used to be the rec room exterior wall. “General!” Rey shot out a hand to help the older woman catch her balance. “You’re alive!”

Leia glanced up, seemingly not having noticed Rey until then. A giant black smudge streaked across her cheek, clean tracks going through it where her tears must have run. Her normally pristine clothes were tattered in places, and through the holes Rey caught a sheen of red. “I’m alive, alright.” She grumbled, waving her hand and casually flinging the cement brick her dress had caught on to the side. 

Rey’s jaw dropped, and Leia finally seemed to acknowledge her, squinting, a scowl pulling the corners of her mouth down. “What? You’ve never seen someone use the force before?”

Behind her, Organa reached into a fold in her dress and pulled out a blaster, small and compact, easy to carry and easy to hide. 

“No, it’s not that—” Rey stammered, before finding her calm. “You just never talk about it.”

Leia snorted, but her tone took on a more apologetic one for her misdirected gruffness. “What’s there to talk about? Luke tried to show me what he learned from Obi Wan but I was always too angry to get the hang of any of that jedi stuff. Said so himself.  _ Force _ , I’m probably where Ben got it from.”

Another pile of rubble exploded open, chunks of duracrete suspended in the air around Kylo Ren. “ _ You?  _ I got this from  _ Lord Vader!”  _ One of the shattered pieces of the building rushed towards Leia, surrounded by the almost tangible tinge of the Dark Side.

Rey leapt into the air and sliced it in two with the blade of her lightsaber, the molten-edged halves falling uselessly to either side. She desperately wanted to come up with a good quip, and managed. “What about me, Ren? I’m right here.”

Kylo Ren smirked and cracked his neck. “You think you matter? You think you’re anything to me? To  _ her,” _ he sneered, pointing his blade in a distant jab towards Leia. “To the universe? You’re  _ nothing _ .” He hopped up on a makeshift pedestal of rubble. “I’m the chosen one, Rey. I’m the one who’s going to bring peace and power to the galaxy. Not you!”

To this, Rey scoffed. “You should really learn your place, Ren. 'Cause this,” she gestured to him up on high, “this isn’t it. If you were chosen, why does the Force let you lose bloody always?”

“I didn’t lose when I faced your turncoat stormtrooper and his rebel pilot.”

“What?”

“That’s right, Rey.” He ignited his lightsaber, his face awash with its crimson glow. “Doesn’t that make you _angry?_ Strike me.”

“That’s--not true. I’d have… I’d have felt it.”  _ Right? _ Her heart was quickly sinking and her grip on the lightsaber loosened. 

He let out a low chuckle, “You’re not that great, Rey. Not yet. Maybe… if you had a teacher.” He gave her a twisted grin. “Maybe, I could teach you.” It wasn’t a question.

“The day I join you is the day you’re as great as you think you are,” she shot back, her teeth bared, her grip tightened on the ignited saber’s hilt. She ran at him, swiping as his elevated legs.

He hopped out of the way of the blue arc of light, down to meet her, with a swipe at her left side. She dodged right out of his way, rolling into a crouch, waiting for his next swipe. When it came, they were once again locked in a clash of blades. As she attempted to slide the blade up and around his arm, he released his off-hand and his eyes bulged. “That won’t work again!” He sent her flying with a Force push, and her back found a ruined piece of wall. 

She wiped sweat from her face and rushed again to close distance, but stopped suddenly. “Actually, you want this?” she pointed with her left hand to the lightsaber, which she deactivated. “Here!” She threw the hilt at him, and he caught it upside down.

He looked surprised, but more than pleased. “What? Change of heart? Can’t handle being a Jedi after all?” Before he finished the last syllable, the blade came back alive and pierced down into his torso. He dropped it in agony. Gasping for air, he stumbled backwards, seething, looking to Rey like a gutted animal.

Then, as she pulled the lightsaber back towards her, a TIE fighter screamed overhead, smoking, about to crash somewhere on the base. Kylo Ren looked up and cackled, raising his arms stiffly. He steered the TIE with the Force, and it arced towards Leia. Rey threw her hands out, trying to send it back, anywhere else, and Leia, too added her strength. It crashed, instead, onto one of the hangars, but Kylo Ren was gone. The sound of a landspeeder could be heard heading for the distance. 

Rey ran off after him. She heard Leia calling for her, but her blood was boiling as she ran off into the forest beyond.

  
  
▹▴◃

Out of the void, he heard a voice next to him say, “Finn, wake up!” He half expected to open his eyes and find that he was on a tropical beach, with all his friends lounging and drinking cocktails that would outclass that Pamarthan hell water he’d drank on D’Qar. The other half was an expectation that he was dead, and the soul of some dead Jedi who he’d never met was going to show him the Jedi Afterlife, whatever the hell that was, or why he’d end up there. In the end, he opened his eyes and it was Poe and him on a cot in a small room--or an average-sized closet. 

“Hey, buddy. I think we’re in trouble,” Poe said, sitting up. “Cause I don’t remember going to bed with you.”

Finn felt his cheeks flush a little and he shook his head. “No, you’re right… something’s off. We were on Ilum, and we were in a cave, and it was cold, and there was--” He screwed his face tightly, as if trying to squeeze out memories. 

“Yeah?”

“I got nothing,” he resigned with a sigh. Then, Finn shot to his feet. “Wait! There was voice--”

“A menacing voice,” Poe offered, half asking.

“No. Not overtly, at least. Wait, yeah, it said, ‘Finally, I’ve got you.’”

“That’s not menacing to you?”

Finn didn’t respond. He started looking around the room--a cell, probably--for anything he could use to either pry or bust open the door--a solid door and not a forcefield, at least--but all that was there was a couple of changes of clothes and--”Oh, wait. Here, get the mattress off. We can… I mean, maybe we can bust off a leg of the cot and try to--hm” Finn was practically pacing this tiny room, trying to figure their way out.

Poe got up, as asked, but instead of listening to his friend, he tried something different. And it worked. The door hissed upwards into the frame, revealing what looked like a corridor. “They didn’t lock it, I guess.”

“Oh,” Finn said. “Okay, so--next step, where are we?”

Poe stuck out his tongue, and seeing Finn’s face, he shrugged. “You can’t taste it? We’re on a ship.”

“I--what?”

“The air, it tastes--stale. Not stagnant, but. Recycled. Artificial. Finn, we met on a Star Destroyer.”

Finn furrowed his brow, “Well, I was usually wearing the helmet. Maybe it was the filter?” He shook his head, trying to ignore the magnetic pull towards bantering with Poe. “Wait, yeah, but who’s ship? Why were they on Ilum?”

“That, I don’t know. They’re probably watching us, which is why they didn’t bother locking us in. Unless it was, I don’t know, trandoshan bounty hunters and this is some sort of blood sport where we have to survive on a murder ship while they’re hunting us from the vents or something.”

“They  _ do  _ that?”

“No, of course not.” Poe paused. “Unless it’s new? Maybe keep an eye on the ductwork, just in case.”

“Alright, so let’s find our blasters. We’ll make our way to the cockpit and, if they aren’t watching us like game animals, maybe we can get the drop on them and get to the bottom of this.”

“You know, Finn,” Poe said with a clap on the man’s shoulder, “That’s exactly my kind of plan--mostly winging it.”

It took them a few tries (‘fresher, galley, engine room) before they found their blasters.

“They polished them?” Finn asked, holding his up to examine it. “And charged them?’

“Yep,” Poe confirmed. “Which is either fine--”

“Or?”

“Or, the people who kidnapped us are some sort of collectors. Like, I’m the Resistance’s Ace Fighter and you’re the Trooper Who Got Away, we’re kind of famous now, buddy. So, maybe, we’ve got bounties on us, and, maybe the hunters who caught us want to sell our stuff as collectibles.” He cracked his neck, “But we woke up, so… we’re probably fine. Should  _ definitely  _ still storm the cockpit.”

Finn shook his head. “I really think you watch too many holovids, Poe.”

“Hey, do you have any idea how boring hyperspace gets?”

They collected their personal effects and were across the corridor from one another on either sides of the hallway. Beyond them was the door Finn was  _ pretty sure _ was the cockpit, and they nodded to each other. Poe mouthed,  _ on three, one, two, three! _ And pressed the door’s panel, opening it to the blue glow of hyperspace. Finn and Poe leapt into the room, blasters pointed, at the only occupied chair. 

“Now, now, boys,” an older woman’s voice said as the blasters were forcibly lifted by invisible hands out of their grasp. The woman in the chair stood up, revealing a Togruta with long montrals, “Those are  _ such _ uncivilized weapons.” She smirked. After a moment of enjoying their confusion, she handed them back their blasters. “Besides, I’m friendly. I’m--”

Poe looked up at her forehead and started laughing. “You’re Fulcrum!”

“Well, I--”

Finn stood between them, “Who’s Fulcrum? Is she a bounty hunter?’

“She’s a spy, Finn, from  _ way _ back. She started the proud tradition of rebel spycraft. And she’s so damn cocky she made her tattoo the symbol of the operatives.”

She cleared her throat, “I’m Ahsoka Tano. I got your distress call. You know, through the Force?”

Finn’s eyes widened with surprise. “Wait… ‘way back’? How far back? Are you a Jedi?”

“I mean, yeah, that far back, but not exactly a Jedi. I left the Order a little while before the Purge.”

“She’s done more good for the galaxy than you could imagine, Finn, and we owe the Rebellion, the Resistance, the Republic, all of it--to her.”

She smiled and shook her head. “I’m not going to sign your helmet, Poe.” She sat back down and gestured to the copilot seat, “Where to?”


End file.
